Convergence of ERP-GMS-WMS-CIS-DM-WFMS-OMS-LIS-DMS—Who
Owns the Overlaps? What is the Importance of Integration?
Jean Jerger, Carolyn Bakke CP&L / Intergraph 412 S. Wilmington Street Raleigh, N. C. 27601 Utilities have been accelerating the implementation of independent applications for the last decade. Most have come to the realization that integration of these independent systems is the only solution for achieving the efficiencies required in the new competitive environment. With the current investment focus now on integrating both applications and business processes across the enterprise, it is imperative that companies analyze potential system overlaps in order to design a compatible and adaptable going-forward strategy. Convergence of these independent systems presents options for either planned integration or unchecked expansion of existing systems into inappropriate application areas, which can generate software that will hinder future integration rather than embrace it. This paper will discuss where seven potential overlaps occur within nine converging systems. The potential overlaps are with the geofacilities model, detail drawings and image management, job workflow, O&M inspection and maintenance, trouble call taking, crew management, job scheduling, outage analysis and distribution management. The converging systems that have elements that present the options for unchecked expansion or controlled integration include: Enterprise Resource Planning, Geofacilities Management System, Work Management System, Customer Information System, Document Management, Workforce Management System, Outage Management System, Land Information System, and Distribution Management System (DSCADA). In the early to mid-90’s, the first software emphasis began with the replacement of antiquated Customer Information Systems. This was followed in the mid to late 90’s with equal vigor to develop Work Management, Mobile Service Order, Outage Management, Geofacility, and Distribution Management systems. At CP&L, we followed that trend and developed and implemented all these systems by 1999. Each system project was independent with separate sponsors, separate timelines, and separate budgets. We managed scope to existing interfaces, designing overlaps as current functionality dictated, all driven primarily by budget and schedule limitations. New applications like Distribution Management (DSCADA) were foreign to the traditional enterprise applications like Work Management and GIS and they were more iterative in development due to the infancy of the software available. For these reasons, Distribution Management was even more an island unto itself during the development and implementation phases. Another important factor worth mentioning was this was also during the time of Hammer’s Reengineering focus – with concurrent emphasis on processes and organizations in addition to technology systems. Why was this important? Primarily it convoluted everyone’s perception of ownership. Every faction of the Utility Organization was in the constant state of flux and change. While streamlining was a focus, the defense mechanisms were also in place to avoid changing job accountabilities. To accommodate these defense mechanisms, and to expedite implementation, functional duplication was built into the systems. But now since most utilities have developed these independent systems and have become operationally dependent on them, it is now time to analyze your options for planned integration that will embrace future integration rather than hinder it. The upcoming material will examine the 7 potential overlaps and discuss ownership and operational efficiencies. Geofacilities Model Overlap The geofacilities model overlaps traditionally converge between a company’s asset management (accounting), the geofacilities model (GIS), and the operational facilities model (Outage Management). The asset registry is typically a data-centric database designed for managing detailed facility information primarily for accounting and tax purposes. They are typically designed without the use of graphics and do not contain spatial components. It is generally fed via the General Ledger based on materials used. Geofacility models have grown to have a tighter integration with the construction “as-builts” ensuring a better knowledge of where that material is and what it is used for. Field inspections generally will ensure that the geofacilities model gets updated, but not necessarily the asset registry. Operational models should represent the facilities as a real time model. But where should it get its data? What if the change is temporary and not permanent? These overlaps cause a data integrity issue that impacts the validity of all three systems. In the best practice approach, the operational facilities model is a subset of the geofacilities model and thus is only maintained once and is frequently updated not duplicated. System and/or processes must be developed to ensure the operational model does not allow temporary changes to stay indefinitely. Similarly the asset registry’s primary data source should be the geofacilities model. If the asset registry and the operational model are closely coupled with the geofacilities model, a host of new queries can easily be executed to generate information in a geospatial context that has previously been very difficult to provide. Detail Drawings and Image Management Enterprise drawing, work archives, and image management presents some real challenges. Utilities possess enormous amounts of detail pictorial documents defining land information, location, and configuration of designed and/or installed features. Furthermore, this issue is expected to explode as new digital cameras, satellite imagery, and 3-D modeling tools provide low cost images, video, and digital models that were previously too difficult or too expensive to obtain. Overlaps even within the geofacilities model becomes an issue if the traditional CAD or design documents do not represent the true “as-built” facility model. At CP&L, it is critical that subdivision design analysis models are updated with how the model was actually built as later phases are added. If this was being done at all, it was done through document management and not as a traditional system interface. Land information systems and geographic information systems generally developed in the real estate area of the company. These systems use satellite images, which can be used as background for the geofacilities model. Easement and right-of-way departments may also have developed sophisticated land information management systems. While geofacilities incorporates most of the capabilities necessary to manage land base information it may not be practical to maintain land information outside of their corporate properties. Another integration issue is that the land base for the traditional geofacilities model is hard to update and is often out of sync with satellite imagery. The best practice solutions combines Document Management for the massive storage and management of archives (e.g. work orders, redlines, detail drawings, pictures, etc.) with geo-positioned links to the documents from the geofacilities model. It is critical that land base best practices deal with accuracy for various overlay scenarios. In general, if the huge volume of ancillary documents is not geocoded and associated with the network facilities in the geofacilities model, they will be stranded or lost in terms of their effective use in a distributed information environment. 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. Crew Management Crew Management occurs for O&M inspection and maintenance, routine work, new construction and emergency response. In most utilities these are independent operations. This is more of an organizational issue rather than a technical issue and the merging of these crew management processes can greatly improve corporate efficiencies. Crew management for all these activities is fundamentally the same. The activities have grown up as separate operations (can be same or different organizations) but have a common linkage during emergency situations. CIS and/or mobile systems are primarily concerned with routing service work and personnel available to respond to these one-man customer requests. WMS needs crew information for scheduling construction jobs. GMS is involved with O&M and new construction jobs. GMS is involved with O&M and new construction but never has been expanded into the crew management arena. OMS performs analysis to determine cause of fault and usually ensures crews are alerted via a manual process or hand off to other systems. Workforce management is the most sophisticated of the options and has the capability for managing all the crew types in a utility. Best practices will probably trend toward a single system for managing all crews in a company and the primary candidate would be a workforce management system, with subsets or information made available to other systems for preliminary scheduling. Distribution Management Distribution Management, commonly referred to as DSCADA systems, should integrate heavily with a company’s Geofacility Management Systems and Outage Management System. If there is integration at all, it will be with the OMS. This integration provides real-time notification of electric facility operational problems. It can supply the OMS alarms and other operational data allowing faster outage resolution. At CP&L, we have taken this another step and provide the outage dispatchers fault locations pinpointing outages to within two spans of the actual outage. CP&L failed to integrate the DMS with our geofacilities model, which now causes real issues. If a monitored feeder device, such as a feeder capacitor, is relocated, it takes the field personnel an additional step in the process to notify the DMS administrators. Generally it will be forgotten. This costs the company real revenue when capacitors fail to respond to an automated operation to control voltage and VARS. If the distribution electrical system is dynamic in nature for load control, then the integration issues only multiply. Best practice would be to have the GMS feed facility modifications to the DMS and develop further integration with the OMS. Conclusion Most areas identified for further integration are system-related and will be welcomed by the field personnel. It will only serve to make their jobs easier. It will eliminate the hesitancy because of safety concerns to have systems make more operational decisions. It will facilitate data accuracy, an area that is only going to become more crucial as the systems become more sophisticated in the future. It will make the utility more competitive, increasing their utility performance measures. Now is the time when we all need to take a serious look at the integration issues and especially at the overlaps between the systems if we are to develop adaptable and compatible systems that provide enterprise-wide information for making smart decisions to manage our distribution operations. | ||
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