Convergence of ERP-GMS-WMS-CIS-DM-WFMS-OMS-LIS-DMS—Who
Owns the Overlaps? What is the Importance of Integration?
Job Workflow
Document Management, Work Management, Geofacilities Management, Outage
Management, and Work Force Management Systems all provide a different level of
workflow management. Work Management is more project-oriented, addressing the
workflow or work orders from initiation to closing. Not all changes to the facilities use
the work management system and thus it cannot be accountable for keeping the
geofacilities model accurate and/or current. The GMS however manages all changes to
the model from whatever source. It manages the current status of facilities yet does not
manage the job workflow. Document Management systems have the capability to route
documents throughout the life cycle and maintain them historically. OMS manages
trouble work that must be dispatched immediately, but how is the crew time, equipment
and materials used during a trouble call different from those items that are managed by
the WMS for routine and service work. Another major issue most utilities face is that
each of these systems typically has their own mobile components for Work Force
Management built into the processes. Why do we need a different mobile solution to
support each type of work? Integration of WMS, GMS, OMS, and WFMS is becoming
the focus of the industry and is proving to be successful. The best practice approach
would be an integrated coexistence between these because each address and solve very
different issues.
O&M / Inspection and Maintenance Analysis
There are many sources of non-graphic legacy facilities information. These have been
used for analysis in identifying inspection and maintenance requirements. However, the
greatest efficiencies are realized when geospatial technology is applied, allowing detailed
facilities information to be analyzed with the additional dimensions of geographic
location and connectivity. Rather than maintaining separate maintenance systems, a
better business practice may be to enhance the Geofacilities Management system to
provide more maintenance functionality and migrate the maintenance data into the GMS
solution.
Trouble Call Taking
Although trouble call capabilities reside in outage management systems, most trouble
calls are handled through the Customer Information System (CIS), Interactive Voice
Response System (IVR), or High Volume Calltaking Application (HVCA). Those
systems interface with OMS to provide input of trouble calls and receive status updates.
Some companies may use OMS for call taking, but best practice will probably dictate a
coexistent integration. The customer system should retain the primary responsibility for
interaction with the customer, and the OMS calltaking functions should be used in an
overflow or emergency situation. It is impractical for the OMS trouble call taking to
become as tightly integrated with customer data as the CIS.
