Ivory tower gets wheels
Charles Marlin
Independent Consultant
993 Mint Springs Road
New Market, Alabama 37651
Claudia Bender
Information Systems Specialist
Public Service Company of New Mexico
4201 Edith Blvd NE
Albuquerque, NM 87107
Drew Mathias
Senior Applications Analyst
MidAmerican Energy Company
106 E 2nd Street
Davenport, IA 52801
Abstract
Two case studies of mobile applications, at Public Service Company of New Mexico
(PNM) and at MidAmerican Energy Company, show how mobile technology demolishes
the wall separating AM/FM from employees working outside the office.
PNM field crews in remote areas routinely have a need to locate themselves, not on the
globe, but on a map with all the company’s facilities. They do so using a ruggedized
laptop with maps and software that takes a lat-long value from a GPS, converts it to (x,y)
map coordinates, and shows the facility map at a usable scale with the GPS point and a
truck icon centered in the screen. Hear about this and other mobile applications at PNM.
MidAmerican Energy has implemented several applications that run on mobile data
terminals and laptops in the field. Employees who do locates, leak surveys, and cathodic
surveys can work more efficiently because these applications present the data they need
for their specific tasks. Emergency work is also made more efficient by mobile tools like
circuit traces from substation to meters that assist line patrols, electrical traces to find the
nearest control device, and valve isolation traces for gas.
Introduction
“Ivory Tower Gets Wheels.” Why did we choose this title? For one, it provoked an
unusual, slightly absurd, and therefore memorable image. Towers don’t normally have
wheels. Secondly, it captured a sense of the revolution that has taken place in the use of
geospatial technology by utility companies in the last few years. With its inception in the
1960’s digital map data was the preserve of a small number of people who worked
outside the mainstream of information technology. They were figuratively working in an
ivory tower, trying to turn lead into gold. And unlike their medieval predecessors, they
succeeded. Using arcane hardware and software, that only they understood, they
attempted to produce paper maps that resembled the maps produced by hand on drawing
boards just as they had been since electricity was first commercially distributed. We say
“attempted” because the early versions of these maps were not well accepted by utility
workers. But printing technology improved, as well as the underlying software, and the
1980’s saw literally millions of paper maps produced from automated mapping systems.
The ivory tower was productive. But the information systems were still the exclusive
preserve of a priesthood of technicians who understood the special incantations required
to make them work. And the goal was generally to produce paper maps.
What changed in the 1990’s, and we see the fruits of it today, was the arrival of
technology that let the digital information itself, not the paper results, be placed directly
in the hands of end users – the people who inspect poles, locate buried pipe or cable, or
respond to emergencies. It is now cost-effective to place devices in cars and trucks that
hold the entire digital model of a distribution network. Just as important as these devices
is software that lets the end users interact with the data conveniently and naturally – in a
way that makes sense to them and the job they are doing. The person responding to an
emergency has more flexibility in viewing the network than any single map could
provide. And he can analyze the network in ways no paper map could support. All using
the point and click interface that anyone who has played a computer game will find
familiar. No more incantations known only to the tower dwellers. The data that was so
many years in the making is now available to everyone who needs it. The ivory tower
has grown wheels.
