Is Your Work Managing You?

And what might be some of the best business drivers that make this assumption work?

"Increased Customer Service
"Consolidation of resources
"Reducing hand-offs and redundant effort
"Resulting in … reduced Operating Costs
"Resulting in … better Operations Productivity and Coordination
"Provide Management with a more singular stream of the Corporate Asset data

Which brings use to a more pressing question, just how do we manage our assets? We will discuss this point a little later.

Timely Business and Application Integration, Through Common Technology
Work Management provides two-way access to valuable information for key business functions and applications such as:

"AM / FM / GIS
"Asset Systems – Meter, Transformer, Valve
"Maintenance Management
"Marketing / Sales
"Customer Information / Customer Care
"Materials Management / Supply Chain
"Contract Administration
"Payroll / Equipment
"Trouble / Outage Management / Dispatch
"Accounting / Finance / Work Order

Many utilities are striving towards common technical and business solutions, resulting in the need for a new or modified infrastructure that combines improved and efficient processes with common technology solutions.

We have heard the term, “Enterprise Applications”, but just what does this term mean to the T & D operations personnel? Is the “Enterprise” for a distribution utility the same as that for a manufacturer? Let’s put a little different twist on the term “Enterprise” and create “Enterprise Application”. First, let’s make a bold assumption that the Distribution and Transmission asset or facilities is the enterprise, for without them there would likely not be very many customers. And let’s also assume that the “Enterprise Application” is made up of two applications, GIS and Work Management. Now with this assumption, what are the applications supporting this “Enterprise Application”?

Let’s imagine we live in the perfect world, and let’s imagine that we have the ability to create a brand new Distribution utility, the perfectly modeled utility. We will have to provide service for 500k to 1M customers. So where should we start? Why Work Management, … of course.

First, let’s use Work Management to initiate the effort, handing the jobs to GIS for design and network planning. We will pass information back and forth until we build the most efficient yet cost effective “backbone” facility structure. Through the use of Compatible Units, we will begin the ongoing integration with the Material Management applications. Using Work Management we will complete the cost estimate, receive all the approvals and permitting required, and schedule the work. This is the point where we will interface with the Accounting and Financial applications, including Work Order Accounting. As the work is completed, the “as-built” information is recorded in both Work Management and GIS. This is also the point where it would be easier to define the applications not being required to integrate with this process, than defining those that would. The new integration points might include Dispatch, Outage, and Property Accounting.