Getting it right: 99.9% pure OMS data
Langley Willauer
Integrated Mapping Services, Inc.
58 Bayview St.
Camden, ME 04843
Abstract
No application is harder on data than an Outage Management System (OMS). At any time,
any customer can call with a report of no power. And periodically, the system is stressed
with massive volumes of trouble calls. When the data aren’t clean, dispatchers are quickly
overwhelmed with unlocated calls, and worse, OMS functionality failures due to incorrect
data. Utility companies continue to find it challenging to keep OMS data current and clean,
but much has been learned in recent years.
Outage systems employ specialty data models optimized for rapid prediction and switching.
Utilities periodically refresh the OMS database from the GIS. Each update is an opportunity
for inconsistent and incorrect data from the GIS to infect the OMS. Data model changes in
the GIS to support changing business needs further complicate the updating process.
This paper reviews the issues inherent with OMS data, then gives a number of practical
strategies for maintaining these data, including ways of keeping GIS data from becoming
inconsistent, incremental vs. complete updates to OMS, offline data exception discovery, and
using metadata to manage the frequency, type, and resolution of any errors.
Objectives
-
Overview of Outage System data issues
- Specific real-world examples illustrating the issues
- Strategies for managing OMS data
