Existing processes and components
A major component in UtiliCorp’s existing architecture is the Facilities
Management & Mapping Enabler (FAME). FAME is a GE Smallworld-based
AM/FM software system that is used to inventory, model and help manage gas
and electric networks. The FAME system accesses data within the Smallworld
GIS that maps and inventories UtiliCorp’s gas and electrical facilities throughout
its Mid-Western territory. Some of the projects that were being implemented
within the FAME framework included; outage incidence recording, distribution
interruption reporting, customer information system (CIS) interface, and SCADA
data availability.
UtiliCorp operates two service centers staffed by UtiliCorp personnel that handle
the normal volume of service/trouble calls. Trouble call tickets were entered into
a Microsoft Outlook e-mail form and then sent, via a series of Microsoft
Exchange servers, to all the appropriate UtiliCorp sites and personnel. UtiliCorp
also contracts with 21 st Century Communications to provide High Volume Call
Answering, (HVCA), services. 21 st Century Communications can process 20,000
calls per hour. The HVCA process is used by UtiliCorp to help in answering
problem calls when the demand becomes greater than what UtiliCorp’s trouble
call centers can handle. Typically this process is utilized whenever serious, widespread outages occur. In UtiliCorp’s Mid-Western territory the widespread
outages are most often weather related and are caused by the serious
thunderstorms, tornadoes and ice storms common to that region. The initial
implementation of the HVCA system generated an ASCII file which was passed
every five minutes from the vendor to UtiliCorp, where the ticket information was
parsed, entered in the Exchange form and sent using Smallworld OLE
processing.
Part of the existing trouble call reporting system was a PC based database
system that was written using FoxPro. This was a single user system that
required someone to manually enter outage data after an incident had occurred.
This was a very slow, time-consuming effort and one that allowed the
introduction of errors during the data entry process. Compounding this data
entry problem, the FoxPro system did not have any data validation routines and
there was no link between the FoxPro system and the facility model. Thus, there
were problems with the timeliness of the data, the accuracy of the data, and the
data existed in its own space without any links to other systems
UtiliCorp was also facilitating a link between the mainframe based Customer
Information System, (CIS), and FAME. This link would allow access to customer
information and usage via the graphic facility model.
Problems with Existing Processes and Components
There were many problems with the existing trouble call process. One problem
was the slowness of the Exchange server. This was mainly the result of having
to replicate large volumes of data across the network to all the Exchange
servers. Another problem was the reliability of the Exchange network.
The FoxPro outage incidence recording and outage incidence reporting routines
were being re-engineered as separate and independent projects, utilizing an
Oracle database. This project was being implemented with no tie to the trouble
call process. The same pieces of information were being captured and stored
with different names and different data types throughout the unrelated systems.
Using FAME to facilitate an outage management system required existing and
valid linkages between the graphic data and the CIS data. Only 10% of the
customer data were linked with graphic data, making it very difficult to associate
trouble calls to electric devices or predict and close an outage. It was estimated
that it would take three years to validate graphic data, verify electric network
connectivity, and create valid linkages between FAME and CIS.
