Trans-Pacific computer network links allow texas to leverage Australian GIT Know-How

Trans-Pacific computer network links allow texas to leverage Australian GIT Know-How

Susan Jackman
Oncor Utility Solutions A TXU Company
1601 Bryan St STE 19084 Dallas TX 75201-9349

Abstract
This paper discusses the approach taken by TXU to reduce the time and cost to update the digital landbase information in their Distribution Management System (DIS), while maintaining relevant quality standards. TXU have successfully implemented a project utilising the expertise of resources in TXU Australia and using the Internet to access systems in TXU US, while leveraging off the time differences between Australia and the US, and also taking advantage of the currency exchange rate. The challenges for training new resources in Australia without travelling will also be explained. The implementation of this global project by TXU has delivered a range of benefits to help TXU US meet their obligations under Senate Bill 7 and this will also be reviewed.

Background
TXU is a major global energy company with operations in North America and Australia. TXU's energy business in North America is the largest power generator and electricity retailer in Texas with 19,000 megawatts of competitive generation and 2.7 million electricity customers. TXU also has the largest electricity and natural gas utilities in Texas, delivering more than 100 million megawatt-hours of electricity and over 140 billion cubic feet of natural gas annually. On the other side of the world, TXU's business in Australia includes both electricity and natural gas delivery, and energy operations, with 1,280 megawatts of generation and almost 1 million electricity and natural gas customers. TXU serves more than 5 million electricity and natural gas customers in North America and Australia.

TXU US maintains landbase information and, gas and electricity network facilities information, electronically in a DIS (Distribution Management System). The landbase information forms the foundation of the DIS and serves as reference for the gas and electric network facilities. The DIS is also used by TXU designers for graphical distribution network facility designs and cost estimates, and together with customer connectivity, is vitally important to the CATS (Computer Aided Trouble System) for the daily operation and control of the electric distribution system, encompassing all 2.7 million Texas electric customers. Therefore the accuracy, completeness and currency of the landbase in the DIS has a major impact on TXU’s facility design and customer connectivity activities for both the gas and electric businesses. In 2001, it was estimated that the New Senate Bill 7 rules would require TXU’s turnaround time on landbase input into DIS to improve dramatically to allow the designers time to prepare and present competitive cost estimates on customer connection requests, within the 10-Working Day rule. Senate Bill 7 also dictates that certain projects are to be completed, from estimate to ready-for-close, within 90 working days.

At that time, the TXU US records group were at capacity keeping up with the new landbase entries and did not have the time or resources to also enter missing or incorrect landbase information from previously completed projects, or update any network facilities corrections, or take on any additional workload arising from deregulation in 2002. In addition to the impact of Senate Bill 7, there has also been rapid growth in North Texas. As the population has exploded at an unprecedented 4% growth rate, we have continued to load our Records group employees at an increasing rate due to the corresponding increase in new and updated landbase data in DIS.

Solution
TXU needed to increase production output in landbase updating (by records group staff), and reduce the time required to provide accurate and competitive cost estimates on customer connection requests (by facility designers). If a shared resource solution were not developed, we would have to examine the balance between reassigning and hiring more costly design group resources, against the priority and urgency of the landbase updates and new entries. It was decided that the highest priority was ensuring the new landbase information is entered into the DIS system to comply with Senate Bill 7.

TXU US also employs local contractors to assist with the workload of the Records group. Each time a new contractor is introduced to the records group there are several expenses incurred in addition to labour charges. These additional costs are the upfront start-up costs, and the ongoing overheads. The main up-front cost is the training costs for each new resource. The ongoing costs include workstations, office space, software licences (DIS is an Integraph Framme system), supervision, quality auditing, and quality control for the contractors.

As we are not always able to utilize the same contract resources, there is a significant training and learning period that must be endured before a resource is as productive as our in-house resources. While in the training and learning period, the contractors also rely heavily on the support of other existing trained resources, detracting from their ongoing productivity. Establishing a consistent core of trained, dedicated personnel would eliminate the constant need for new training, reduce the supervision and quality control costs, and allow the US-based Records group to be more productive. Another major advantage of using the resources in TXU Australia is the elimination of extra software licence costs as the time difference (15 hours) means that the current licences are used for a greater part of each day.

Therefore, TXU US sought the help of TXU AUS to establish a project and provide resources to update the landbase information in DIS. The focus of this project was to explore and capitalise upon the opportunities that technology and regional diversity offer TXU’s global energy delivery businesses. As we start to leverage this new era of technology, the vast improvements in global connectivity pose an increasingly viable international resource utilisation opportunity. This project therefore aims to capitalize on new Internet technologies and the availability of skilled TXU Australian resources to assist with the backlog of TXU US engineering workload.

The project will explore the opportunities that Internet technology in TXU US may provide, and also take advantage of the currency exchange rate, as the difference in labor rates present an economically viable solution to the backlog of landbase entry/update work that currently exists. This project also offers a unique opportunity to explore and realise how the Internet represents a whole new paradigm for achieving business synergies and savings for both TXU Australia and TXU US. The planned method for establishing connectivity is solely through the use of the Internet. After logging on to a specified Citrix portal website, the client enters their profile information and once that has been verified by the Citrix server in the US, the client has direct access to the DIS database where they can perform the necessary updates and new entries. The client will be able to access the Distribution Information System (DIS) database via the Internet, using the Citrix thin-client technology as the key medium. No software is required for the client’s PC, provided they have Internet access.

See diagram 1 below for the high level technical solution

Diagram 1 - High Level Technical Solution
Timeframes
It was agreed that resources in Australia would start 2 hours early, and training staff in Texas would work two hours later each day during the 2 week training period. Resources in Australia also agreed to change their work week to Tuesday to Saturday, to suit the time differences. This also avoided the DIS backup period required and scheduled each evening in Texas

Training room Equipment
A conference room was set up in Australia as the Training venue for the six new resources to be trained simultaneously. Each trainee had his own workstation, connected via Internet to the DIS training alternative, shadowed by the trainers in Texas. There was a seventh workstation and DIS session connected to a data projector on the wall of the conference room in Australia, which was controlled by the trainer in Dallas for all trainees to view at the same time. There was also a phone with a loudspeaker used as a conference phone for the duration of the training session. Training was conducted for four hours each day, with demonstrations by the trainer viewed on the wall of the conference room, followed by practice by the trainees on their individual workstations. The trainers in Texas shadowed each trainee’s workstation, and answered queries on any feature or process for individual trainees. If a trainee got into difficulties, then the trainer could take over the trainee’s workstations and get it back “on track” before handing control back to the trainee.

Procedures and Data capture guidelines
TXU US produced a Procedures Manual, and Video “Support Tutorial for DIS Users” for all prospective and current users of DIS. These help, and tutorial tools were supplemented by the ongoing development of a quality controlled “landbase data capture guideline” document where all questions and answers were recorded, FAQs recorded, and any interpretations and guidelines documented, after agreement. Together these formed the basis for quality auditing, testing, recording of errors, to ensure that error rates were reduced to acceptable levels asap. Note that the quality standards used in this project, and which continue to be used in ongoing quality assessments, are the Australian quality standards of error rate < 2.5%.

Training Summary
The training was received and conducted very successfully with excellent feedback by all participants, trainees and trainers. The focus of training was to establish a solid base for all trainees to meet the quality standards asap. Based on previous training experience and monitoring in Texas, it was anticipated that a newly trained user would meet the required quality standards and the required production rates within 8– 10 weeks. It actually took 12 weeks for the new users to consistently meet the relevant quality standards and production rates, see Diagram 2 PTT landbase Project December 2002 Monthly report.

Support
TXU US staff provided technical IT support, DIS application support, and Business process support, for four hours per day during the training period. The requirement for this level of support diminished rapidly after the training period was completed, and was directly related to the reduction in the number of IT & application issues, and as the DIS Landbase capture guidelines was developed, and as the users’ competence levels increased.

Ongoing support is provided through email questions and answers to TXU US staff, with referrals to particular features or Plats, and through interpretation of the DIS Video tutorial, and the DIS landbase data capture guidelines. The turnaround time for most queries is overnight, and work is managed so that productivity is not impacted.

Achievements

Hard Benefits
The project commenced in August 2001, and has been in full production for 14 months. The actual productivity targets per person have been met, and while the total project production output is lower than originally estimated, this is due directly to revised budget availability for this ongoing project work, and hence a reduced number of resources involved.

See Diagram 2 - Monthly total cost, and Diagram 3 - Features per month, which illustrate how changes to the number of resources on the project, and hence monthly cost, is directly related to the production output, i.e., “features per month”:

Diagram 2 – Monthly Total Cost

Diagram 3 – Features per Month
The quality targets were the primary focus in the first three months of the project. The DIS support tutorials (Videos produced by TXU US) and landbase data capture guidelines form the basis of quality testing criteria. Each new user was heavily audited during the first few weeks while in the DIS training environment, and as their error rate declined so did the quality auditing. However, quality auditing is maintained on every user to ensure that targets are maintained. See Diagram 4 - %errors rates per month, which clearly demonstrates that the error rate target of < 2.5% errors has been met continuously since Nov 2001.

Diagram 4 - % Error Rate per Month
Intangible Benefits
One of the key targets of this project was to explore the opportunities to capitalize on Internet technology and TXU’s regional diversity and resources working together as one global team. These targets have all been met with resounding success, such that no resources have moved temporarily or permanently for user training or during production, and no hardcopy documents have been mailed. Source documents for input are available either in digital form, or scanned and posted on an FTP by TXU US staff prior to updating in DIS landbase by the TXU Australian resources. Both of these benefits are particularly relevant and important post 11 Sept 2001.

There is increased business flexibility in the use of the TXU Australian resources on this project, which now is capable of moving from existing TXU Australia data capture work across to TXU US DIS landbase work, depending on workload requirements and production targets. This project has continued to highlight the benefits of working as a global team with resources across TXU’s regional locations. Aside from Senate Bill 7 requirements for serving customers within specified timeframes, we believe this project has increased customer satisfaction by providing Distribution Designers and Project Managers with more accurate estimating information.

Summary
The processes and achievements described above continue to help TXU US meet their obligations under Senate Bill 7, and therefore continue to meet the key target for this project. The quality standards were achieved after just three months and have now been maintained for 14 continuous months through December 2002. In the 12 months through Dec 2002, the TXU Australian resources have successfully updated more than 216,000 features and 2,900 Plats into the DIS landbase. This has been achieved with no costs for extra software licences or seats (Integraph Framme), no extra supervision, no extra workstations, no extra office space, and no extra overheads associated with employing extra permanent staff or contractors.

The TXU Australian resources on this project also have expertise in TXU Australia’s data capture systems and processes, and thus provide ongoing business flexibility to vary the resourcing levels as production requirements dictate, without costly start-up costs, without long delays to achieve results, and while meeting all quality targets required. This project has shown the cooperation by resources that have never actually met, working in different regions of TXU, can form a truly global team to achieve significant results. TXU has now leveraged off this project and its lessons, and TXU Australian resources now also update TXU US gas facilities in DIS, with similar results in the key areas of productivity, cost and quality.