Trouble call intigration without an outage
Larry R. Schantell
Senior Application Specialist
UtiliCorp United
Kansas City, Missouri
Robert W. Rozen
Senior Technical Manager
GE Smallworld Spatial Services
Westminster, CO
Introduction
UtiliCorp United is an international energy company with its headquarters in
Kansas City, Mo. It operates in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom,
Spain, Germany, Norway, New Zealand and Australia. UtiliCorp has over 4
million customers in its domestic and international operations. For 1999 it was
ranked the second-largest wholesale marketer of electricity in the U.S. and the
third-largest marketer of natural gas. On the Fortune 500 list, UtiliCorp ranked
90th based on 1999 sales. The company is also included in Fortune's list of
America's Most Admired Companies. UtiliCorp’s United States operations are
concentrated in the Mid-West, largely in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri,
Minnesota and Michigan.
Like many long established utilities, UtiliCorp’s computer systems had evolved in
an unplanned manner, resulting in a variety of systems on different computers,
ranging from PCs to mainframes. Moving and maintaining information between
all these disparate systems was a chore. UtiliCorp wanted to have a common
solution for its call centers, field resource centers (FRC), and other facilities.
They also wanted to improve customer service by providing outage status,
estimated restoration times, and identification of problems areas. The reduction
of maintenance expenses was another important consideration. Whatever the
solution, it was very important that current operations not be affected.
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