DMS - The integration solution for GIS/SCADA/OMS
Modular design
Many utilities despite having employed different IT strategies face similar IT
challenges. Legacy Customer Information Systems (CIS) that are purely 'premise'
based are being replaced with client-server 'account' based systems. Integrated
Financial, Asset and Works Management Systems are generating a great deal of
interest and a plethora of legacy and homegrown independent systems have IT
managers scratching their heads.
What are needed by organisations looking to fully exploit their technology
investments are solutions that can support the current systems and offer a solid
foundation to build and integrate new systems and applications.
Historically real-time systems such as SCADA systems, have been managed
separately from other IT systems. A DMS offers the opportunity to finally
integrate real-time data with corporate information systems in a secure and
manageable fashion.
A modular approach to Distribution Management Systems allows SCADA, GIS
and other external systems to live out their natural life-cycle and eventually be
replaced with products from any preferred vendor. An internal modular approach
allows a company to tailor design the system by installing only the specific DMS
software applications for which a business need has been identified. It also enables
the system to be implemented in manageable increments.
DMS business objectives
Distribution Management Systems serve to satisfy high-level business objectives
within an organisation. This is achieved by providing a wide array of efficiency
gains and customer service tools that assist both operational and non-operational
areas of a business. In addition to the core beneficiaries of a DMS e.g. Control
Room Operators, Dispatchers, Customer Call Takers and Field Crews, a range of
other potential beneficiaries of an effectively designed and deployed DMS within
an electrical utility include Asset Managers, System Planners, Energy Traders,
Media Relation Personnel etc.
Immediate DMS benefits for electric utilities often include standardising work
practices, automating manual tasks and operating the network at higher utilisation
while maintaining service levels and reliability. The establishment of a single realtime
network model presents the potential for significant operational and business
improvements. Other benefits include computerising mapping systems and
empowering the workforce to manage customer queries and emergency situations
more effectively. While many of these benefits are achievable regardless of the
DMS architecture employed, it is the future applications, which some utilities are
already exploring, that will truly test the robustness of a DMS design.
Organisations are therefore encouraged to look at both the current and future
applications of a Distribution Management System when assessing fundamental
DMS architectural options.
It may be argued that given the huge potential of DMS technology, the architecture
that offers the greatest flexibility and options, while maintaining price and
performance requirements, is the wisest approach to take.
Future DMS applications
While utilities all apply individual strategies to systems integration, there are clear
and distinctive trends emerging within the industry.
Mobile Data Terminals linked through Computer Aided Dispatch systems are
providing cost savings and efficiency improvements for utilities wishing to
improve the management of their field operations. Global Positioning Systems add
yet another tool to improve resource management and crew response times.
Sophisticated Voice Response Units with dynamic data links to SCADA and
metering information, are driving up the baseline for customer service levels that
companies will be forced to achieve if they wish to remain competitive. Caller
Line Identification can enable a personalised recorded message, greet and respond
to an individual customer who calls with a query or outage report. A Distribution
Management System provides the critical link between the customer and the realtime
state of the network that these technologies require.
The introduction of a contestable market place has seen a dramatic emphasis
placed on the issue of metering. Metering Data Agents will soon be gathering huge
volumes of metering information that will be disseminated to national authorities,
distribution companies and energy retail organisations. Integrating metering
information into a DMS environment provides an organisation with an opportunity
to monitor not only usage data but also quality and reliability of supply. The ability
to then control and coordinate customer load from a central control system
becomes possible.
Progressive organisations are beginning to invest in technologies such as Intranet
applications that access corporate data warehouses. The significant benefits these
technologies provide include protecting the integrity of critical data while making
the data available corporate wide through a standard desktop. Platforms such as
DMS take giant steps towards making network and customer data available to data
warehouses that can then provide managed access, via the Internet, to selected
customers, authorities and other relevant external parties.
While new SCADA, Trouble Call, Customer Information Systems etc. all have
additional features over their previous versions, they are all essentially
replacements of existing systems. DMS however can be considered a totally new
tool to an organisation. By integrating customer and network information onto a
common platform and providing a standard user interface, a business is free to
explore dramatic process re-engineering opportunities that without such a system
would be impossible.
