Do you really know where your customers are?
Maryann M. Revers, Gina M. Newhouse Allegheny Power 800 Cabin Hill Drive, Greensburg, PA 15601 Abstract Allegheny Power’s (AP) Outage Management System (OMS) integrates data from the Customer Information System (CIS) and AM/FM to “electrically” locate over 98 percent of its 1.47 million electric customers. Outstanding cooperation between AP’s Technology Group and field personnel during 1999 and 2000 increased the number of connected customers from 85 percent to more than 98 percent. Technology methods optimized the effort needed in the field. Joint efforts between Technology and field personnel connected approximately 195,000 customers by various methods including electronic data correction, collecting the correct transformer pole number and mapping the missing transformers or facilities in AM/FM. Knowing the electrical connectivity of your customers improves the effectiveness of the Outage Management System during service restoration, enables proper notification to customers via automated methods, allows direct reporting of Reliability Data to Utility Commissions and provides accurate information for other operational systems such as AM/FM and Engineering Analysis Programs. Introduction Allegheny Power provides nationally recognized customer service to its 1.7 million customers, in part, because of its use of integrated technologies. Allegheny Power is the energy delivery business of Allegheny Energy, delivering low-cost, reliable electricity and natural gas to customers in parts of Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. The service territory covers more than 31,000 square miles and serves over 1.7 million customers in a population base of over 3 million. Do you really know where your customers are? The Need for “Connected” Customers For field operating technologies, knowing where our customers are is vitally important for efficient service to our customers! AP, as other utilities, in the early 1990’s knew where the customers were ... or, at least where to deliver their utility bills. There had not been any great need to track where the customers were connected to the “electrical world”. (Note, gas as a service at AP began in early 2000.) As new technologies were envisioned, such as Outage Management, the need to know specifically “what is the relationship of customer to electrical network”, and “what network device is connected to the customer” becomes a necessity. How It All Began In the mid-1990’s, the only technology that touched the customers was the Customer Information System (CIS). This became AP’s means of tracking where the customer was attached to the electrical network. In 1994, a project was started, even prior to Outage Management and AM/FM, to collect each of AP’s customer transformer pole numbers. Even without capital funds, the project became a reality. Since a meter reader visits every customer site, the meter readers were chosen as the group to spearhead the data collection effort. The hand-held meter-reading units prompted the meter reader to enter the transformer pole number that served the customer. The meter readers were trained to identify the serving device for the customer, and preceded over the next three years to collect this information. In 1996, AP field technologies were revamped to include AM/FM, Outage Management, Work Management, and Mobile Computing. A central call center was also added to aid in the needs of our customer base. Technologies became a communications vehicle between our front door, the Call Center, and our customers. With the implementation of the technologies, the customer tie to AP facilities became a great benefit. The initial view of our customers was not complete since AP had no electrical network to validate the information that had been collected by the meter readers. The network models being developed with the AM/FM system proved that the information that was collected did match actual locations for approximately 80 percent of the customers. Users of the technologies recognized that the more “connected” the customers, the easier the analysis and use of technology. And, our customer satisfaction was greatly improved when we knew where they were. Having 80 percent of customers connected was not adequate, so AP undertook many efforts for improvement … what is desired at AP is to have more than 99 percent connected. The Basics So where does Allegheny Power’s Outage Management System get its data? Through a data extract from the AM/FM system, circuit data is passed to OMS. Only transformer and device locations are passed. This means that secondary poles and intermediate poles do not get passed to OMS. Customer information is passed from the Customer Information System to OMS on a daily basis. Customers have a location number on their account in CIS. This number should indicate the transformer pole number or padmount transformer number that serves the customer. All Allegheny Power poles and structures have a round metal tag on them with a unique location number. In order for a customer to be “connected”, they must have the correct location number on their account and that location must be mapped in the AM/FM system. If there is a blank location number on their account, they will be “non-connected”. If the pole number is typed incorrectly on the account, they will be “non-connected”. If the number on the customer account is a pole without a transformer, they will be “non-connected”. They will also be non-connected if the location number is shown incorrectly in AM/FM or if the facilities are missing. The Challenge Ahead So in 1996, 80 percent of Allegheny Power’s customers were connected, which was not adequate. Allegheny Power undertook many efforts for improvement … what is desired at AP is to have over 99 percent connected. Both the technology group and field personnel were faced with a challenge to improve. The technology group quickly assisted early on with verification that the pole on a customers account was indeed a transformer pole and not a service pole. Automated procedures were created to follow network connectivity and find the appropriate transformer location for each service pole. Formatting of actual numbers recorded were modified also automatically; there were instances where the numbers collected through the previous years either had or did not have a dash in the number and the number in AM/FM circuit models had the opposite. This and other methods brought the number to 88 percent quickly. Automated methods can only go so far. The technology group needed the assistance of the field employees to perform field checks in order increase the number of connected customers. In late 1999, the Technology Group and the Service Center employees began working together to connect their “non-connected” customers. The goal was to have less than one percent non-connected by the end of 2000. A team was formed to identify the problems and come up with a plan of action to make this project a success. The team was made up of two technology employees and three field employees. Some of the problems identified were as follows:
One significant issue was that Service Center employees did not fully understand how non-connected customers were being created. The team visited with employees from each Service Center and reviewed non-connected customer issues. This raised the awareness level of the Service Center employees. AM/FM contractors at AP’s corporate center in Greensburg, Pa., were utilized to identify non-connected customers that required field work to correct. Contractors were hired at various Service Centers to help address these field checks. Allegheny’s surveying group was used to map long taps that were missing in AM/FM. The AM/FM contractors were used to correct data problems. This effort to eliminate the non-connected customers required the cooperation of Managers, Lines Engineering Designers, Administrative Assistants, General Managers, Planning Engineers, Dispatchers and the technology group. With management commitment to the project, the team was able to receive everyone’s help. The goal was to reduce the number of non-connected customers to one percent by Dec. 31, 2000. On Dec. 31 the count was 2.246 percent. As of October 31, 2001, the count was 1.4 percent. Here’s what the Service Center employees are still doing to help:
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