asset management

www.energycentral.com ENERGYBIZ MAGAZINE 39

assetmanagement

38 ENERGYBIZ MAGAZINE July/August 2005


Asset management seems to have as many names as there

are vendors promoting it and utilities buying it. That’s because there

is no one over-arching definition of the discipline. Is it enterprise

resource planning (ERP)? Is it enterprise asset management (EAM)? Is

it a system that produces process improvement from generation to

the field? Is it inventory, financials, warehousing, wires and pipes, or

people? What exactly constitutes an asset? Increasingly, utilities are

determining that virtually everything they possess is an asset — from

the information stored in automated systems, recorded on paper, or

even communicated by word of mouth.

The definition of asset management has shifted considerably since the

early days when SAP, based in Germany, introduced the idea of “enterprise

software” to U.S. companies back in the early- to mid-1990s. Considered

prime targets, utilities were just coming out of a long slumber as regu-

lated, protected, quasi-governmental organizations with great resources.

Facing the very real risk of competition, utilities quickly realized that the

“silo structure” of their information technology solutions wouldn’t work

in the proposed new environment; nor would existing haphazard systems

of locating, moving, and accounting for all kinds of assets.

Thus, SAP and other vendors began expanding their footprints to

compete with SAP. They expected to take the industry by storm and

eventually drive out niche players with all-encompassing, tightly inte-

grated software packages. However, some strange things happened

along the way to this planned vendor nirvana: collapse of deregulation

in California; the demise of Enron and other corporate malfeasance;

and the implosion of the wholesale energy market. One interesting

phenomenon that resulted, besides the splintering of the enterprise

asset management computing market, is most “energy companies”

now want to be called “utilities” again. They also want to define,

configure, and determine management of assets on their own terms

— not as some large vendors decided they should be defined.

As a result, not only have SAP, Oracle, J.D. Edwards, PeopleSoft, and

several others opted against creating monolithic “enterprise computing”

empires at utilities, but also utility IT seems to be as splintered as ever

— at least in the United States. The lineup of vendors also has changed

considerably. First PeopleSoft acquired J.D. Edwards. Then Oracle acquired

PeopleSoft. Traditional CIS/CRM vendor SPL WorldGroup acquired a smaller

ERP/EAM vendor, Synergen, plus an OMS vendor, CES International, and

now is playing in the “enterprise” asset management space.

Several other ERP/EAM vendors have continued to broaden and

expand their offerings to encompass more assets. Indus International

of Atlanta, for example, acquired a CIS from SCT and now calls its

overall package “Service Delivery Management.”

Utilities did catch on to the idea of having their systems commu-

nicate across the enterprise, but they have done so much “picking

and choosing” that many enterprise or asset management vendors

find themselves having to link to their competitors’ products at the

same utility. One example of that trend is evident at Nashville Elec-

tric Service, which acquired Mincom software, an enterprise software

vendor, and integrated it with PeopleSoft/Oracle. National Grid of New

England is another case in point. Its U.S. operations run primarily on

PeopleSoft, but its United Kingdom parent has a former (before the

PeopleSoft merger) Oracle EAM solution. Lattice, a newly acquired gas

subsidiary, employs SAP.

The idea of enterprise asset or resource software has split into

competing ERP and EAM paradigms. Both have enthusiastic advo-

Managing ComplexityEVERYONE KNOWS WHAT ASSET MANAGEMENT IS — THEY’RE JUST NOT SURE WHAT TO CALL IT.

By Warren Causey

www.energybizmag.com ENERGYBIZ MAGAZINE 41

cates and overlapping software. Utilities continue to mix and match

their asset management solutions, but view them as a necessary part

of a whole. “Work management, asset management and financial are

integrated into one system,” says Connie Woo, vice president and CIO

at Toronto Hydro. “The rest (CIS, SCADA, GIS) are stand-alone systems.

We definitely would like to see all of these systems integrated to

support seamless processes.”

“Seamless processes across all asset groups and functions” is

the mantra of most utilities today, especially the large investor-

owned entities that dominate 75 percent of the market. That includes

systems that deal with assets all the way to the residence or business.

“I mentioned field service automation and SCADA, which are two areas

I would like to see improved,” Woo says. “We also have a distribution

management system, but we would like to expand it.”

Even industry analysts categorize the asset management market-

place in different ways. Some will rank work management vendors in one

study, EAM vendors in another, supply chain management (SCM) in yet a

third category, and ERP vendors in a fourth or fifth category — sometimes

even adorning the term ERP with Roman numerals for good measure.

Vendors will stake claims to being the No. 1 solutions provider in

one category or another. Sub-segments in the marketplace often are

applied, for example, defining industry categories in different functional

ways (energy companies including oil and gas as well as electric, or sepa-

rate categories for electric generation vs. transmission vs. distribution),

or by using three “tiers” to distinguish large-, mid-, and small-sized

companies before analyzing the different vendors’ market shares.

But for utilities, the main interest is in developing integrated soft-

ware systems that enable them to improve the processes involved in

dealing with their assets and doing so system-wide. “A major area that

I’m really looking at where there needs to be a breakthrough is in busi-

ness process orchestration,” says Gene Zimon, senior vice president,

Information Technology, NSTAR, based in Westwood, Mass. “If you buy

the logic that you’re implementing processes by assembling legacy and

new software components, you end up with a set of systems that has

to be integrated in order to deploy an effective business process.”

Thus one important “asset” being sought from technology is

improved “process,” making the definition even more complex.

The complexity of the undertaking was expressed by Mahvash

Yazdi, senior vice president, business integration and CIO, Edison Inter-

national and Southern California Edison,

in Rosemead, Calif. “Our engineering

organization is looking into application

of technology wherever it makes sense

in terms of both transmission and distri-

bution assets,” he says. “We also have a

group that we call our technology watch

group, and we are looking at information-

related technology, such as automation of

field tools. We are providing our linemen

and trouble men with computers in their

trucks and with tools that will enable

them to manage their work in a real-time

fashion, and have the right material

[assets] at the right location. We’re look-

ing at power line carriers in a private

fashion, potentially for a narrow-band

automated meter reading. So, we have

technology groups that are doing tech-

nology evaluation as well.” That means

meters and the systems and individuals

who read them are assets, as well.

Toronto Hydro’s Woo also views asset management as part of

“service-oriented architecture.” Woo says: “We are planning an

upgrade of our EAM system, which is the system from Mincom that

encompasses all our work management, human resources, asset

management, our financials, our supply chain, and all of our back office.

So we’re planning to upgrade to the next version of that system. Hope-

fully, that will move us to a new architecture — the service-oriented

architecture. Hopefully that will position us better for the Web and

future automation.”

Despite the attempt by vendors and analysts to quantify and

“pigeonhole” asset management, it continues to be elusive in terms

of definition at utilities. But due to their asset-intensive nature, utili-

ties know they need to be involved in it. They understand that assets

include everything from the pole or transformer in the field to the

business intelligence provided to the boardroom by integrated enter-

prise systems that enable executives to see the status of those poles,

transformers, generating plants, and field service crews.

Vendors willstake claimsto being theNo. 1 solutionprovider in onecategory oranother.


Cobb Electric Membership Corp.(EMC), in Marietta, Ga.,

is atypical of cooperative utilities in the United States. With its service

territory located in one of the fastest-growing areas of suburban

Atlanta, it’s larger than most co-ops with approximately 180,000 electric

customers and more than 100,000 natural gas customers — all captured

after the Georgia natural gas market was deregulated in July 1988.

Cobb EMC also has morphed over the last 10 years from a tradi-

tional electric co-op to a multi-product company that sells everything

from electricity and natural gas to local and long-distance telephone

service, Internet service, home security, and more.

To deal with its exploding list of services, Cobb EMC formed Cobb

Energy Management Corp. (Cobb Energy) in 1997, a for-profit entity

formed to be an aggregator of services for the membership of Cobb

EMC and others.

By 2003, it became obvious that Cobb EMC’s Orcom Customer

Information System, which handled everything from financials and

billing to tracking assets in the field, needed updating.

“That software really served us well through the years, but the

way our company looked in 1995 [when the Orcom CIS was installed]

and today is totally different,” says Steve Paolucci, associate vice

president of finance at Cobb Energy. “The old monolithic software just

couldn’t handle it anymore.”

As a result of that impasse, Cobb Energy began exploring enterprise-

wide asset management software in 2003. In 2004, it began installing a

new set of solutions. Most software and hardware for the entire enter-

prise, including the original co-op, now reside with Cobb Energy.

“When we went into this project, we had hoped we could find one piece

of software that could do everything we needed done,” Paolucci says.

The fact that it didn’t work out that way is typical of many utilities

in the United States — they haven’t been fertile ground for the large

enterprise computing firms like Waldorf, Germany’s SAP.

“We started with five or seven different options and narrowed it

down to three: Lawson Software, St. Paul, Minn., PeopleSoft [now an

Orcom subsidiary], and SAP,” Paolucci says. “We did intense sessions

with those companies, gave them our requirements, and asked

whether they could meet our needs out of the box, with minor modifi-

cations or major modifications.”

That process, which was assisted by Capstone Consulting Partners,

now a subsidiary of Alliance Data Systems, of Dallas, extended through

last summer. However, none of the companies could satisfy Cobb Ener-

gy’s needs completely, Paolucci says. At that point, the utility decided

to go with a “best of breed” solution. The result is the kind of mix-and-

match software selection that has driven executives of “enterprise”

software firms up the wall and resulted in considerable consolidation.

Cobb Energy will implement the following line-up of asset manage-

ment software:

Lawson Software will handle financials and human resources/

payroll.

A new Cordaptix CIS from SPL WorldGroup, San Francisco, will

be installed for customer care and billing.

A component of Worksuite, of Houston, will provide the front-

end for Cobb Energy’s existing field automation system.

Intelliplant, a product of Information Intellect, of Marietta,

Ga., will handle fixed asset management accounting for

power and distribution assets.

“An EMC, like any distribution company, is pretty asset intensive, with

most of the assets being in transmission and distribution,” says Paolucci,

explaining why there is a separate accounting system for fixed assets.

“Most generic accounting systems have one asset number for something

such as a pole. Thus, they have to treat all those assets individually. To

avoid that, there are some specialty software systems that handle these

things as groups. Information Intel-

lect has one of those.”

Cobb Energy now is installing

and integrating all of the software.

“We’ve been through three conver-

sions so far,” Paolucci says. “We

decided to try to learn from our

previous mistakes — one of those

was to run the projects ourselves.

That’s why we hired Capstone. We

wanted a company that had some

expertise in managing a project for

us so we could stay sort of on the

outside and be more concerned

with learning the software and

training.”

Despite the assistance, the

installation is progressing in

stages and won’t be fully

completed until sometime in 2007,

Paolucci says. When it is, Cobb

Energy/EMC will join a long list

of utilities that entrusts asset

management to a collection of

best-of-breed software from

several companies.

Blending Solutions A GEORGIA CO-OP GOES “BEST-OF-BREED.”

By Warren Causey

definitionsThe following are offered as a guide.

ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning

ERP systems developed originally in heavy industry and tended to emphasize financials and resource planning, though they gradually grew to include work management, human resources, and other “softer” disciplines, including even customer informa-tion systems (CIS).

EAM – Enterprise Asset Management

EAM systems developed in more process-oriented industries with more emphasis on human resourc-es and work management, but gradually grew to include financials and supply chain management/re-source planning and CIS.

SCM – Supply Chain Management

SCM grew up in plants and factories and still concentrates primarily on the movement of parts, fuel, and other supplies within the heavy-industry supply chain. However, some SCM sys-tems have grown to include other elements of ERP and EAM.



Asset management capability within integrated enter-

prise solutions are rapidly transforming the ways in which both gas

and water utilities monitor and repair their vast arrays of assets.

Energen Corp. recently revolutionized its business processes and

created valuable new efficiencies by successfully implementing an

enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that features integrated

asset management functionality.

Providing natural gas to more than 460,000 customers statewide,

Alagasco and Energen have experience with periods of sustained

change and a long history of preparing for the future. The company

got its start in 1852 as Montgomery Gas Light. The company has

two major subsidiaries: Alagasco, its natural gas utility, and Energen

Resources, its oil and gas exploration and production company. Through

its two subsidiaries, Energen acquires and develops domestic oil and

gas properties and distributes natural gas throughout Alabama.

Energen’s presence in the upstream as well as the downstream

side of the business enhances the company’s understanding and

appreciation of the entire energy value chain. Operating within two

distinct aspects of the energy industry further serves to emphasize

the importance of an IT solution that can create communications with

a strong information flow between different departments.

In 2002, Energen reevaluated its outdated legacy systems and

numerous manual processes that had become large cost centers,

concentrating primarily on the operations of Alagasco. With approxi-

mately 1,200 employees and significant operations in seven states,

Alagasco was outgrowing the cumbersome manual processes it used for

project approval and documentation. Rather than continue underutilizing

the company’s physical assets by manually inputting project information

into legacy systems, delivering documentation through inter-office mail,

and manually reporting for regulatory compliance, management decided

to employ an enterprise technology to manage all assets by aiming to

maximize the return on investment within each asset.

The company first declared the need to make asset-related work

(maintenance, productivity, automation) safer and more efficient. From

an asset management standpoint, there were several other problems

to address as well. Operating expenses were consistently rising due to

a lack of transparency between different systems and an inadequate

IT infrastructure for alerting managers to equipment requiring repairs

and replacement. Inaccurate data records detailing plant and fleet asset

usage and repairs further stymied the company’s ability to operate

at full production. Having looked at numerous solutions from several

vendors to replace the homegrown systems, the IT staff’s first priority

was a solution with a high level of integration. Not only would an easily

integrated solution allow the company to streamline processes for work

orders and maintenance, but it would also deeply embed within numerous

departments across the enterprise — from accounting to maintenance,

creating large productivity gains for a greater number of employees. As

a company with a strong corporate culture spread throughout the state

of Alabama, reaching a high level of employee buy-in to the implementa-

tion was another important goal.

Energen officials chose the mySAP ERP system with asset manage-

ment functionality. Aiming for a launch date of Jan. 1, 2003, the project

team began the implementation phase in March 2002. The greatest

impact of the implementation was within Alagasco’s distribution

system. Consisting of more than 30,000 miles of pipe that deliver

natural gas directly to thousands of customer locations, the distribu-

tion system remains the company’s most important asset. Any defect

in the piping can lead to an immediate revenue and product loss.

Through the ERP system, capital project approvals and materials

management helped expedite the process of expanding and improving the

distribution system. With workflow management, project approval time

decreased from a full work week to within a day. Moreover, materials that

were in shortage are quickly re-routed to projects with the most signifi-

cant need. For example, if additional materials and workers are required

for constructing a new border station, both maintenance teams and

materials are quickly dispatched from lower priority projects to provide

maintenance, avoiding job stoppages due to a shortage of materials.

Additional productivity gains are derived from improving the processes

for acquiring and maintaining company assets. All new asset acquisitions

— from facilities to technology to office furnishings — are made within

the system, approved by an internal check of real-time budget figures.

After purchase, depreciation schedules are automatically added into the

system for use by accounting and other departments, eliminating costly

paperwork. For maintenance projects, entering work orders modularly

into the system allows for information to be shared enterprise-wide,

enabling different departments to move forward without having to wait

for a paper trail to reach their desks. For example, while repair crews

evaluate a work order for a fleet vehicle, the purchasing department can

review the costs of replacing the vehicle. When the maintenance team’s

final report is entered into the system, management has the up-to-the-

minute information to make an informed decision about replacement.

As with any enterprise software installation, the Alagasco imple-

mentation experienced considerable challenges — the greatest of which

rested in allowing the workforce to adapt to process changes. Through

ongoing demonstrations of the advantages of the new enterprise

system, Energen management was able to emphasize the time-saving

benefits of the new system to end-users. Another obstacle arose from

Improving Asset Efficiency for Productivity Gains By Brunson White

��

��ebiz_banner1.indd 1 6/28/05 4:22:29 PM


2541662_MRO_ENERGY.qxd.pgs 04.20.2005 19:48 BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN


the granularity of the data provided by the

system, at first resulting in a hypothetical “data

overload.” However, through ongoing exposure,

end-users and customer-facing employees

were able to quickly turn this hindrance into

a strength. When making purchase decisions

about field equipment, Energen management

can now deftly search through the perfor-

mance history of specific equipment, allowing

for quicker, more-informed decision-making.

As other utilities look to improve asset

management, they should seek out an imple-

mentation option that can instantly integrate

with established business processes and link

throughout the entire value chain. Industry

best practices often preach about the value

of an integrated approach, but this is an area

that cannot be stressed enough. An inte-

grated solution provides for a quicker and

easier installation. Moreover, by integrating

all business processes, Alagasco achieved a

sophisticated level of service and responsive-

ness. Flaws within the distribution system were

easily tracked, setting a maintenance schedule

ranking repairs by areas of need and resulting in

the lessening of revenue and product loss.

No matter how skilled the IT department,

a successful and seamless enterprise imple-

mentation cannot be handled alone. Third-

party or vendor personnel must be available

to help employees learn new systems and to

ensure that phased implementations stick

to original timetables and meet pre-desig-

nated goals. All utilities must be able to trust

a vendor. At Energen, the team consistently

worked well with our software partners and

consultants, who were able to quickly train

employees to utilize the new software, while

providing a rational, goal-driven template for

future implementations and upgrades.

Energen realized quick, significant returns

from its ERP solution. Overall costs fell with

particular improvements seen by reducing

mechanical failures and providing responsive

corrective maintenance. Critical plant, fleet,

and distribution equipment saw maintenance

costs drop as well. Moreover, operational effi-

ciencies increased greatly with the advent

of real-time information and near real-time

budgeting, allowing for the widespread trans-

mission of mission-critical information to

departments throughout the enterprise. With

the ERP solution to help manage Alagasco’s

workload, response time has improved drasti-

cally, which in turn improves customer service

and loyalty measures.

With the widespread success of the ERP

system featuring asset management capabili-

ties, Energen continues to bolster its production

and cut down on costs by targeting the supply

chain. A project team is currently working to

install a document management system (DMS)

to facilitate the accounts payable portion of

the supply chain, linking the finance depart-

ment with production efforts. Company-wide,

a new focus has been embraced, calling for

ongoing examination of business processes

with the intent of delivering greater returns to

customers and shareholders.

Enterprise asset management is evolving

outside of the legacy systems of the past two

decades, becoming a significant part of the

fully integrated utility. The major barrier to this

transformation is the unwillingness of corpo-

rations to address the change management

issues concerned with leaving the interfaced,

less-optimized world. The ROI to complete this

transformation is available; organizations must

be willing to venture outside of their comfort

zones to realize the full potential of the inte-

grated enterprise. While it’s difficult to predict

when this trend will become the norm, inte-

grated asset management will soon become

the low-hanging fruit of the future as utilities

look to complete supply chain optimizations.

While some asset-intensive industries are

unique enough to require highly specialized

functionality within the asset management

space, I would argue these are the exception

rather than the rule. In the end, the ultimate

answer for utilities lies in extending ERP

systems with new open-standard architec-

ture platforms that preserve the deep inte-

gration of all business processes.

Brunson White is the CIO of Energen Corp., headquartered in Birmingham, Ala. He also currently serves as the chair of the American Gas Association/Edison Electric Institute Technology Advisory Council.

o n t o p i cUtility Outsourcing articles

from EnergyPulse

To view any of these articles, please go to www.energycentral.com/quicklink and type the

quick link code into the quick link box.

End the Asset Management Tug-of-WarRichard MacDonald, SPL WorldGroup, Inc. Quick link code: P1025

Optimizing EAMJohn Yolton, Solutions Associates Quick link code: P539

It’s Always Been About Asset ManagementFrank Craig, MCR Performance Solutions Quick link code: P531

Working Capital ReductionDonald Ryan, dynaTHinK LLC Quick link code: P402

Asset Management, in Theory and PracticeBruce Humphrey, KEMA Quick link code: P386

Capital Asset Life ExtensionAnthony Impelluso, AIM Engineering, LLC Quick link code: P320

A New Look At Spending OptimizationScott Sidney, UMS Group Quick link code: P204

Seven Principles of T&D Asset ManagementBill Cozzens, Soluziona USA Quick link code: P193

Asset and Supply Chain ManagementJunaid Yasin, ProcureZone Quick link code: P185

Value of Early Warning of FailureTim Holtan, SmartSignal Corp. Quick link code: P159

Asset OptimizationDunham Cobb, CGEY Quick link code: P137

Utilities Need More Asset ManagementJohn Geoghegan, IBM Quick link code: P113

Mixed Signals Cloud Reliability PictureBruce Humphrey, KEMA Quick link code: P387

Enterprise Exposure ManagementKevin R. Rose, ENSIGHT Advisors Quick link code: P24


AD

VE

RT

IS

EM

EN

T

[ C A S E S T U D Y ]

AD

VE

RT

IS

EM

EN

T



Mobile Computing Tools For Mobile Workers Improve

Is the utility industry undergoing a sea change? Most analysts agree that it is not. They say, in fact, that it has already happened. The past model for increasing utility company profits — raising rates — is obso-lete. New economic realities compel savvy executives to focus on bot-tom line improvements to increase market share, improve employee efficiency, maximize customer-retention levels and cut costs.

And, they say, the 21st century’s emphasis on enterprise and produc-tivity offers utility companies opportunities unseen since the early days of state and federal regulation three- quarters of a century ago. These opportunities more than justify the challenges inherent in seizing them.

As one recently retired marketing vice president put it, “When I started in the business our major sales efforts were directed at legislators. When I left, it was all about customers. Which is how it should be. The legislators made sure we never lost money, but they also limited what we could do to earn income and how much of that revenue we could retain. Utilities are a no-limits industry now. A guy starting out in my business today may wind up building something more profitable than Microsoft by the time he steps down.”

Exploiting new worlds — unlimited worlds — requires new tools. Bet-ter tools. Faster tools. More fail-safe tools. Tools that will work anywhere, anytime, under any conditions. Tools with an almost infinite capacity to be scaled up to do more work and scaled out to perform new tasks.

Next-generation, utility task-optimized rugged portable com-puters, such as the Panasonic Toughbook® CF-18 and CF-29, are prime examples of tools that generate a direct impact on a util-ity company’s bottom line. This positive impact is measurable and occurs on both the revenue and cost sides of the balance sheet.

A typical case study proves that the deployment of cutting-edge mobile-computing technology not only improves the bottom line, it improves it dramatically. And, in some cases, such as that of the United Kingdom’s largest power supplier, British Gas, the word “dramatically” could fairly be called an understatement.

Prior to digitalization, British Gas had hundreds of field offices and 17,000 tech and back-office workers, most of them spending their workday shuffling papers. Today that 17,000-person workforce numbers less than 4,000, and most of the field offices have been shuttered.

Wireless-capable Panasonic CF-18 ruggedized “convertible” notebook/tablets help a field force handle over 6 million service calls a year. Errors in ordering replacement parts have been reduced from one-in-four to “practically nonexistent” and delivery of those parts takes 12 hours, not several days.

According to British Gas, the productivity of their technicians using the CF-18 has more than doubled, going from an average of four calls per day to ten and resulting in a “huge reduction in infrastructure and labor costs.”

The British Gas experience proves that ruggedized computers with multi-protocol wireless connectivity are an essential component in reducing utility company operating expenses on both a global and per-call level.

But can that impact really be shown on the other side of the ledger? Can a piece of hardware such as a Toughbook actually increase revenue as well as reduce costs?

Research shows that it can, but only if that new piece of hard-ware fits perfectly within the IT scheme of the company deploying it. It must be more than the correct tool for the job; it must be the right tool for the entire enterprise.

After intensive study and stringent testing, British Gas decided on the CF-18 because it exceeded both the performance and durability specifications for generic field-force computers and the task-specific requirements of a huge, diversified power utility.

In addition to being the United Kingdom’s largest industrial and consumer supplier of gas and electricity, British Gas engages in such varied enterprises as appliance sales and repair, financial services, and security system design and implementation.

The company employs field technicians for such disparate tasks as meter reading, line and pipeline maintenance, central air and heating system installation, commercial and residential steam-boiler repair, and kitchen appliance service.

To equip such a diverse workforce without hobbling the IT department with a hard-to maintain assortment of differing computer models and platforms, British Gas needed a high-per-formance, standardized unit with exemplary multitasking and com-munications ability.

A fully ruggedized 4.5-pound computer with extended battery life, a 40GB shock-mounted hard drive and a daylight-readable, pressure sensitive touchscreen, the CF-18 instantly converts from a high-performance Windows XP notebook to a Windows XP tab-let computer via a unique swiveling and folding screen.

The Toughbook’s ability to replace both outdated notebooks and traditional, proprietary-software-driven pen tablets was critically important to British Gas, as was the CF-18’s full Intel® Centrino™ compliance and simultaneous wireless WAN, wireless LAN, Bluetooth and GPS capability.

The time, effort and expense British Gas invested in its quest to maximize the return on its field-force computerization investment has paid off handsomely. Not only have the ruggedized portables dramatically reduced the sales, general and administrative share of every dollar British Gas spends on field force labor and materi-als, they have produced measurable revenue gains in areas sus-ceptible to competitive pressures.

According to British Gas Home Services IT business manager, Peter Ransom, the Panasonic “convertibles” are providing “abso-lutely fantastic” service. “Mobile computing has helped us reduce response times to call-outs, increase the speed of job turnaround, and ... present a fresh, clean and very professional image to the customer,” Ransom said.

AD

VE

RT

IS

EM

EN

T


AD

VE

RT

IS

EM

EN

T



To put it simply, the Toughbook implementation has helped British Gas achieve unusually high customer-satisfaction levels — the Holy Grail of all enterprises trying to increase market share, profits and ROI via new business acquisition and retention.

Another utility company that has used cutting-edge mobile com-puting and communications technology to lead its industry in customer satisfaction is Arizona’s Salt River Project, recipient of the 2004 J.D. Power and Associates Distinction for Electric Utilities Award.

SRP, which uses fully ruggedized Panasonic notebooks such as the Toughbook CF-29—a MIL-STD-810F-tested, Centrino-com-pliant portable—reports that increased use of rugged portable computers in the field has resulted in substantial savings in both dollars and personnel hours.

And, SRP says, those are only some of the benefits attributable to the Toughbook deployment. Others include increased work crew efficiency, better communications and scheduling, safety improve-ments related to having the most current electric maps available for each job, safety improvements related to a decrease in miles driven to obtain maps and support at field offices, decreased radio and cell-phone traffic, an increase in customer service quality and a decrease in the amount of time customers are out of service.

Since SRP’s corporate culture orbits around customer service, the last two items on that very impressive laundry list are arguably the most important. The company’s 2004 rating of 112 on J.D. Power’s utility customer satisfaction list outranked that of every other electricity supplier in the U.S., and company officials plan to do at least that well this year.

SRP managers attribute a good part of their long-term customer honeymoon to the company’s policy of constantly upgrading and updating their mobile computing capability, adding applications and enhancements as they become available rather than waiting for the end of their hardware’s life cycle to renew the system.

While companies throughout the utility spectrum are faced with the challenge of increasing profits without raising rates, there is no place where the shift to a new earnings model is more dramatic than in the cable television and telephone industries.

Faced, for the first time, with competition from other cable companies as well as satellite providers, cable operators in many parts of the country are fighting increasingly bitter market-share wars. Rates are going down, the number of basic, nonpremium-tier channels is going up, and customer acquisition and retention enhancements like HDTV receivers or personal video recorders are being offered at cost or below. Despite all these factors, sur-veys still identify dissatisfaction with customer service as the most common cause of television provider churning.

If market conditions in the broadcast-delivery business are chaotic, those in the telephone industry are in a state of complete bedlam. According to some surveys, the number of households that switched local telephone providers increased by more than 60 percent in 2003-2004, with more than 10 percent of all U.S. telephone users either changing their primary carrier or abandon-ing traditional copper-wire service completely.

Virtually every consumer willing to spend 30 minutes in online research can find a cellular provider offering them an almost unlim-ited number of online minutes, free voicemail, free long distance and free nationwide roaming for less than $50 a month. And they are willing to deliver all this service, as well as a “free” phone, directly to the customer’s mailbox, thus changing the service equation from a standoff — sitting at home waiting for an installer vs. standing in line at a cell phone store — to a win for the cellular provider.

Given the advantages of reasonable monthly costs, free long-distance, no in-home service calls and portability, it’s no surprise that increasing numbers of Americans are firing their landline phone companies.

Responding to this pressure, many traditional phone providers have relinquished some of their most historically cherished profit cen-ters to maintain market share. Package plans bundling unlimited local and long distance calling and a range of premium services — every-thing from call waiting and voice mail to distinctive ring tones and, in some cases, DSL — for a fixed, cut-rate price are proliferating.

Making money while offering customers more bells and whis-tles for fewer dollars demands rigorous attention to cost control and employee productivity. Getting customers to subscribe — and stay subscribed — to those packages, regardless of their value, requires an almost obsessive focus on customer service. “While price will always be an important factor, satisfying customers has become more about the quality of the relationship and the pro-vider,” says telephone industry analyst Steve Kirkeby.

“Utility professional continually trust the Toughbook CF-29 and convertible Toughbook CF-18 for rugged reliability and industry-leading uptime at a significantly lower total cost of ownership.”

AD

VE

RT

IS

EM

EN

T



Explaining why his company recently pulled almost 3,000 supervisors out of their offices and sent them into the field with ruggedized notebook computers, a key executive with one of America’s biggest telecommunications companies echoed Kirkeby. “The program is designed to enable us to do better work, more tightly scheduled work, and safer work,” he said. “It all comes down to increasing the quality of our customer service.”

Improving customer relations by redefining its concept of ser-vice and spending millions of dollars on better tools was a formida-ble challenge for this company, but given the importance of every single market-share point won or lost, one it had to undertake.

Since abandoning the concept of behind-a-desk supervisors in favor of “floating field offices” required portable computers capable of wearing many hats, selecting the perfect hardware platform was crucial.

The notebooks would be used to monitor and evaluate field technicians while they worked, allowing supervisors to give them real- time problem-solving guidance. The units would need to be automatically updated with new cable maps, location records and service procedure changes and each would have to be capable of connecting to any of the several wireless protocols used in the company’s vast service area.

And they would have to run all the applications the supervisors had previously performed in-office and file the generated e-docu-ments on the company’s servers from wherever the supervisor hap-pened to be. Finally, the computers had to be bulletproof. Failure of a technician’s computer, with the resultant backing up of service orders, is bad. Failure of a computer in the truck of someone with 15 employees to support is unacceptable.

The decision to use ruggedized Toughbooks such as the CF-29 was based on many factors, not the least being Panasonic’s unique position as the industry’s only core manufacturer of rugged computers and rugged computer components.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Rance Poehler, President Panasonic Computer Solutions Company

Jim King VP of Operations

Jared Gould VP of Engineering

Brandi Gil Director of Marketing

PANASONIC COMPUTER SOLUTIONS COMPANY

50 Meadowlands ParkwaySecaucus, NJ 07094Phone 800.662.3537Fax 201.392.6618 www.panasonic.com/toughbook

BUSINESS CONTACT

Thell Gillis Phone (281) 395-8420 [email protected]

AD

VE

RT

IS

EM

EN

T



��

��

��

��

��

��

��


ENTERPRISE ASSET MANAGEMENT

AdvanticaPO Box 86Carlisle, PA 17013(717) 243-1900www.advantica.biz

American Software470 East Paces Ferry RoadAtlanta, GA 30305(404) 264-5296www.amsoftware.com

Artemis International Solutions Corporation4041 MacArthur Boulevard, Suite 401Newport Beach, CA 92660(800) 477-6648Fax (949) 660-6501www.aisc.com/saoContactDan Niswonger, SAO Solution Sales Manager

(847) 441-1802Dave Thomas, SAO Solution Sales

(312) 231-7170

Artemis International Solutions Corporation is the world’s leading provider of Investment Planning and Control™ solutions. The Artemis Strategic Asset Optimization Solution is based on a proven enterprise portfolio and project management plat-form by the world’s largest energy companies. This robust and highly configurable platform permits you to think big for the long term, but lets you start small and obtain highly measurable productivity results and/or ROI benefit in the short term.

Champs Software, Inc.1255 North Vantage Point DriveCrystal River, FL 34429(352) 795-2362www.champsinc.com

Data Systems & Solutions, LLC12100 Sunset Hills Road, Suite 310Reston, VA 20190(703) 375-2800www.ds-s.com

Datastream Systems50 Datastream PlazaGreenville, SC 29605(864) 422-5001www.datastream.net

Datria Systems, Inc.7211 South Peoria Street, Suite 260Englewood, CO 80112(303) 728-1300www.datria.com

EPRI Solutions, Inc.942 Corridor Park BoulevardKnoxville, TN 37932(865) 218-8000www.eprisolutions.com

ESRI380 New York StreetRedlands, CA 92373(909) 793-2853www.esri.com

GEAC Enterprise Solutions11 Allstate Parkway, Suite 300Markham, ON L3R 9T8, Canada(905) 475-0525www.geac.com

Hansen Information Technologies11092 Sun Center DriveRancho Cordova, CA 95670(916) 921-0883www.hansen.com

IFS10 North Martingale Drive, Suite 600Schaumburg, IL 60173(888) 437-4968www.ifsworld.com

Indus International Inc.3301 Windy Ridge ParkwayAtlanta, GA 30101(770) 952-8444www.indus.com

Intenia AmericasTwo Century Plaza1700 East Golf Road, Suite 900Schaumburg, IL 60173(847) 762-0900www.intentia.com

Ivara Corporation935 Sheldon CourtBurlington, ON L7L 5K6, Canada(877) 746-3787 x312www.ivara.comContactGary Davies, Vice President, Sales

(905) 632-8000 x263Brian Maguire, Vice President, Marketing

(905) 632-8000 x311

A leader in asset reliability solutions, Ivara combines advanced technology and reliability expertise to help utilities achieve and sustain a proactive, reliability-focused approach to asset management. Ivara EXP software supports the asset reliability process – effectively managing asset health and ensuring the right work is always done on the right equipment, at the right time. With Ivara, customers can achieve higher returns on their asset investment and reduce costs while ensuring safety and environmental integrity.

Lawson Software380 St. Peter StreetSt. Paul, MN 55102(651) 767-7000www.lawson.com

LogicaCMG10375 Richmond Avenue, Suite 100Houston, TX 77042(713) 954-7000Fax (713) 785-0880www.logicacmg.com/usContactGary High, Vice President, Sales & Marketing

(713) 954-7096Sue Wilson, Marketing Manager

(713) 954-7308

SourcebookListing Categories

ENTERPRISE ASSET MANAGEMENT PAGE 52

MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT PAGE 56

SW IMPLEMENTATION/SYSTEMS INTEGRATION SERVICES PAGE 56

BUSINESS PROCESS PAGE 58

MAINTENANCE OUTSOURCING PAGE 59

OTHER PAGE 59

http://www.aisc.com/sao

http://www.logicacmg.com/us

http://www.ivara.com


LogicaCMG’s Asset & Resource Management (ARM) suite providesthe foundation utilities need to achieve dramatic businessimprovements. With ARM, utilities can unify their workforce, assetsand culture to reduce costs and better manage their business.

By optimizing the use of information and assets with ARM,companies can produce significant operational changes and moveto the next level of business benefits. ARM provides the criticalinformation technology that supports smarter business decisionsand enables a utility to stand out from the crowd.

The ARM product suite includes work management, mobilecomputing, asset management, compliance tracking, dispatch,scheduling and reporting capabilities delivered as a pre-integrated,seamless solution.

LogicaCMG is a major international force in IT services and wireless telecoms.It provides management and IT consultancy, systems integration andoutsourcing services to clients across diverse markets including energy andutilities, telecoms, financial services, industry, distribution and transport andthe public sector. For more information, contact us at 1-800-334-7101 or seewww.logicacmg.com/us.

SOLUTIONS THAT MATTER

Demand dramatic improvement—unify your workforce, assets and culture

LogicaAd_EnergyBiz 6/15/05 9:59 AM Page 1

AD

VE

RT

IS

EM

EN

T



For over 40 years, LogicaCMG has been a major international force in IT solutions, systems integration, consulting, products and services. LogicaCMG’s Asset and Resource Management (ARM) product suite combines work management, mobile computing, asset management, compli-ance tracking, dispatch, scheduling and reporting capabilities into a single, seamlessly integrated environment.

From the office to the field, ARM streamlines a utility’s business processes, manages the entire work stream, controls operational costs, and manages maintenance and regulatory compliance activities.

Mainpac10-12 Clarke Street, Suite 201Crows Nest, NSW 2065, Australia+ 61 2 9438 1411www.mainpac.com.au

Mainsaver9890 Towne Centre Drive, Suite 100San Diego, CA 92121(858) 550-5300www.mainsaver.com

Mincom9635 Maroon CircleEnglewood, CO 80112(303) 446-9000Fax (303) 446-8664www.mincom.comContactMarc Duame, Inside Sales Manager

(303) 446-9000

Utility organizations invest billions of dollars in assets – from personnel to equipment. A single system to manage equipment maintenance, purchasing, finance and workforce planning is critical to ensure cost efficiency and quality service delivery.

Mincom provides Enterprise Asset Manage-ment (EAM) and e-business solutions to power generation, transmission and distribution; water and wastewater; and gas utilities around the world.

Mincom offers a range of consulting services delivered by experienced professionals with deep industry knowledge and implementation expertise.

MRO Software100 Crosby DriveBedford, MA 01730(800) 2 44-3346Fax (781) 280-2202

www.mro.comContactRon Wallace, Industry Marketing Manager,

Utilities (781) 280-6875

Charles Maul, Enterprise Marketing Support Representative (770) 481-3070

Jerry Schinski, Senior Sales Consultant (201) 909-3765

MRO Software is the leading provider of strategic asset and service management solu-tions. Maximo Enterprise Suite, the company’s flagship solution, is delivered on a web-archi-tected platform and increases productivity, optimizes asset performance, and service levels, reduces costs and enables asset-related sourcing and procurement across the entire spectrum of strategic assets.

MRO Software (Nasdaq: MROI) is a global company based in Bedford, Mass., with approxi-mately 900 employees, 10,000 customers and more than 260,000 end-users.

NISC (National Information Solutions Cooperative)

#1 Innovation CircleLake St. Louis, MO 63376(866) 999-6472www.nisc.coop

NewEnergy Associates, A Siemens Company400 Interstate North Parkway, Suite 1500Atlanta, GA 30339(770) 779-2800www.newenergyassoc.com

Open Systems International, Inc.3600 Holly Lane North, Suite 40Minneapolis, MN 55447(763) 551-0559Fax (763) 551-0750www.osii.com & www.e-scada.comContactMary Jo Nye, Director of Business

Development (763) 511-0559

Open Systems International, Inc. (OSI) provides open and high performance solutions to utilities worldwide. These solutions include Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), Energy Management System (EMS), Generation Management System (GMS), and Distribution Management Systems (DMS), as well as individual software products for electric utility operation. OSI’s products include monarch™, a Linux, Windows and Unix-based system platform and Osiris™, a new Linux-based secure Remote Telemetry Unit.

Oracle USA500 Oracle ParkwayRedwood Shores, CA 94065(650) 506-7000www.oracle.com

Peregrine Systems, Inc.3611 Valley Centre DriveSan Diego, CA 91230(800) 638.5231www.peregrine.com

Perfect Commerce850 NW Chipman Road, Suite 5050Lee’s Summit, MO 64063(816) 448-4444www.perfect.com

Ramco Systems CorporationCrossroads Corporate Center3150 Brunswick Pike, Suite 100Lawrenceville, NJ 08648(609) 620-4800www.ramco.com

R.W. Beck, Inc.1801 California Street, Suite 2800Denver, CO 80202(303) 299-5200www.rwbeck.com/emc

SAP America, Inc.3999 West Chester Pike Newtown Square, PA 19073(610) 661-1000Fax (610) 661-8868www.sap.comContactLeila Ahmed, [email protected] Jablon, [email protected] Cross, [email protected]

SAP for Utilities is a set of state-of-the-art software solutions for utilities worldwide. The integrated, highly reliable, and scalable solutions enable the end-to-end management of business processes because they are built on the open architecture of the SAP NetWeaver™ platform. Today, in 70 countries around the globe, more than 950 leading electricity, gas, water, and municipality utilities in regulated, transitioning, and deregulated markets rely on SAP for Utilities.

SoluzionaRosetree Corporate Center1400 North Providence Road, Suite 4005Media, PA 19063(610) 892-8920www.soluziona.us

http://www.mincom.com

http://www.mro.com

http://www.osii.com

http://www.mro.com

http://www.sap.com

http://www.logicacmg.com/us

AD

VE

RT

IS

EM

EN

T



POSITIVE CHANGE

Westar Energy, the largest electric energy provider in Kansas, is dedicated to providing its 650,000 customers with high quality service at below average prices. Although Westar Energy has received national recognition for maintenance and performance, the utility’s seven energy centers were constrained by home-grown mainframe information systems and reactive maintenance practices. The Company’s executives knew they could do better. They set out to grow best-in-class maintenance organizations.

A select team of Westar Energy employees was created as a task force to plan the foundation for positive change. Goal-driven metrics were identified, and a new Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) system was chosen and put into place. David Walter, Engineer VI in Westar Energy’s “Engineering Reliability” department explains, “If you can measure against a goal, you can fix and improve the process. Metrics force the issue and fuel an environment of continuous improvement.” The value of this strategy became immediately apparent, and the utility expanded the EAM initiative over the next four years to include additional processes, modules, reports, and increasingly aggressive goals.

THE SOLUTION

In 1998, Westar Energy chose SPL WorldGroup’s Enterprise Asset and Work Management (SPL EAM, formerly known as the Synergen Series®), to replace its legacy systems. SPL EAM was selected over other vendor solutions because of its user friendliness, robust features, configurability, and low overall total cost of ownership. The application would enable standardized work practices and data for-mats across Westar Energy’s seven energy centers.

In less than two years, all sites were live on SPL EAM and main-tenance managers were ready to implement a new, three-pronged approach to power plant maintenance:

1. Improve Planning and Scheduling: Westar Energy wanted to modernize its maintenance system and organization by implementing best practice work planning and scheduling.

2. Integrate Maintenance and Supply Chain: Purchasing and inventory organizations would be a more closely integrated partner in support of maintenance efforts.

3. Measure and Improve Results: The utility sought to increase accessibility of information and better manage results by establishing goals and performance metrics.

Westar Energy’s greatest challenge involved the cultural/behavioral and procedural changes necessary to successfully implement goal-driven practices. Metrics would determine where weaknesses existed, and procedures would be implemented to improve performance. Personnel throughout the fleet were moti-vated to work together to overcome each limitation in pursuit of maintenance excellence.

MEASURING SUCCESS

SPL EAM serves Westar Energy work management needs, in the areas of work and project planning, scheduling, permitting, timekeep-

ing, purchasing, inventory control, and more. Every transaction that occurs in a power plant is sent to the general ledger via SPL EAM. Using the data collected and stored in SPL EAM, Westar Energy executives are now able to track and measure performance and chart progress toward maintenance practice improvement goals.

Westar Energy’s plant maintenance departments perform approximately 30,000 work order tasks per year and generate about 17,000 work schedules annually. The utility has met several of its

goals in transitioning from reactive maintenance to a more planned and scheduled environment, and was able to build upon its suc-cess by measuring and improving work package planning, advance scheduling, schedule compliance, planned materials percentages, and related metrics. According to Walter, “About 18% of our main-tenance work is currently unscheduled. Recognition of, and visibility into, the inefficiency of unscheduled work is helping us to change our work culture.” He adds, “This year we met our goal for the per-centage of hours spent on predictive and preventive activities, and we will very likely raise the bar next year.”

Westar Energy’s materials and purchasing organizations also tended to be reactive. With metrics this is changing. The utility stocks nearly 60,000 SKUs in its warehouses and executes more than 17,000 purchase orders each year. Objectives such as reduced inventory, increased use of blanket purchase orders, achieving con-signment goals, and meeting required dates are measured. Westar Energy’s Generation Business Analyst, Sue Gordon says, “The internal lead time from requisition generation to purchase order issue has been dramatically reduced. Replacing previously arduous tasks with the capabilities of SPL EAM made this possible.”

EFFICIENCY OF INFORMATION BREEDS SUCCESS

Walter concludes, “We’ve always felt that our maintenance organi-zations were effective. Today though, with the help of the SPL EAM solution and a strong focus on continual improvement in our work management process, we are even better. We are far more efficient in collecting intelligence now. Having ‘exploded’ in this respect is proving invaluable to our efforts. We now have the ability to continuously evalu-ate our progress and raise the standard as we meet our goals. The end result is a more efficient operation, more reliable service, and greater customer satisfaction.”

Westar Energy Proves Knowledge is Power

“This year we met our goal for the percentage of hours spent on predictive and preventive activities, and we will very likely raise the bar next year.”


SPL WorldGroup, Inc.525 Market Street, 33rd FloorSan Francisco, CA 94105(415) 963-5600Fax (415) 963-5601www.splwg.comContactCathy McCause, Vice President, Marketing

(925) 658-1056

SPL WorldGroup delivers a leading Enter-prise Asset Management software solution — SPL Enterprise Asset and Work Management (SPL EAM) — for collaborative work management and asset optimization across the enterprise. SPL EAM is also available as part of an integrated suite of best-in-class utility-specific software solutions including SPL Customer Care & Billing, Mobile Workforce Management, and Outage and Distri-bution Management that helps utilities around the world achieve competitive advantage while ensur-ing a lower total cost of technology ownership.

Southeastern Data Cooperative, Inc.2100 East Exchange Place, Suite 300Tucker, GA 30084(770) 414-8400www.sedata.com

TMA Systems, LLC5100 East Skelly Drive, Suite 900Tulsa, OK 74135(918) 858-6600www.tmasystems.com

Xtensible SolutionsPO Box 372969Satellite Beach, FL 32937(321) 777-3789Fax (321) 777-3810www.xtensible.netContactGreg Robinson, President & CEO

(321) 777-3789Joe Zhou, CTO

(303) 229-4328Terry Saxton, VP Special Projects

(763) 473-3250

Achieving your asset management objectives will require unambiguous information to be shared among many applications and users. Xtensible Solutions offers the Model Driven Integration (MDI) Framework to meet this requirement in a timely and cost-effective manner. MDI provides the process and capability whereby your enterprise can lever-

age a common language for asset management goals and objectives, roles and responsibilities, and asset performance metrics that are understood and correctly used across your enterprise.

MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT

ABB Inc.940 Main Campus DriveRaleigh, NC 27606(800) 919-4995www.abb.com/us

Burns & McDonnell9400 Ward ParkwayKansas City, MO 64114(816) 333-9400Fax (816) 333-3690www.burnsmcd.comContactDoug Riedel, Associate Vice President

(816) 822-3391Jeff Greig, Associate Vice President

(816) 822-3392

Founded in 1898, Burns & McDonnell is a full-service engineering, construction, environmental and consulting solutions firm.

The company’s multi-disciplined staff of more than 1,800 includes engineers, architects, contractors, planners, estimators, economists, technicians and scientists, representing virtually all design disciplines. Burns & McDonnell plans, designs, permits, constructs and manages facili-ties all over the world with one mission in mind — to make our clients successful.

Camcode Barcode Labels18531 South Miles RoadCleveland, OH 44128(800) 627-3917www.camcod.com

Caver-Morehead Systems, Inc.5000 Legacy Drive, Suite 170Plano, TX 75024(972) 599-9330www.caver-morehead.com

Cetaris41 Constellation CourtToronto, ON L0G 1J0, Canada(416) 679-9555www.cetaris.com

Engica TechnologyNewcastle TechnopoleKings Manor, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 6PAUnited Kingdom+ 44 (0) 191 201 7777www.engica.com

har*GIS Field Information Systems6551 South Revere Parkway, Suite 210 Centennial, CO 80111(303) 220-0253www.truckmap.com

Harris Computer Systems1 Antares Drive, Suite 400Ottawa, ON K2E 8C4, Canada(613) 226-5511www.harriscomputer.com

LinearVision, LLC198 Van Buren Street, Suite 120Herndon, VA 20170(250) 388-0500www.linearvision.com

LogicaCMGSee complete listing on page 52

Meridium10 South Jefferson StreetRoanoke, VA 24011(540) 344-9205www.meridium.com

SMGlobal Inc.2911 Waterford Forest CircleCary, NC 27513(919) 434-5146www.smglobal.com

SW IMPLEMENTATION/SYSTEMS INTEGRATION

SERVICES

Accenture128 Third Street SouthSt. Petersburg, FL 33701(727) 897-7000www.accenture.com

AMEC Americas Limited2020 Winston Park DriveOakville, ON L6H 6X7, Canada(905) 829-5400www.amec.com

Deloitte 127 Public Square, Suite 3300Cleveland, OH 44114(216) 589-1300www.deloitte.com/us

Delve Energy Group LLC855 Foxberry Farms Road, Suite 200Minneapolis, MN 55340(763) 478-3580www.delveenergy.com

http://www.splwg.com

http://www.burnsmcd.com

http://www.xtensible.net



Doble Engineering Company85 Walnut StreetWatertown, MA 02472(617) 926-4900www.doble.com

Enspiria Solutions, Inc.10475 Park Meadows Drive, Suite 200Littleton, CO 80124(303) 741-8400Fax (303) 799-6766www.enspiria.comContact: Hahn Tram, Executive Consultant

(303) 521-3055Mehrdod Mohseni, VP, Business Development

(303) 521-5395Chip Scott, EVP, Operations

(303) 949-6144

Enspiria Solutions provides consulting and systems integration services to help utilities plan and implement technology-enabled solutions including: Asset Management, Geographic Information Sys-tems, Automated Meter Reading, Substation Auto-mation, Outage Management, Work Management, and Mobile Field Dispatch. Our experts offer a range of Asset Management services to enable clients to succeed across their T&D enterprise including reliability management solutions, investment project prioritization, performance benchmarking, key per-formance indicators, and executive dashboards.

ICF Consulting9300 Lee HighwayFairfax, VA 22031(703) 934-3637www.icfconsulting.com

KEMAOne Burlington Business Center67 South Bedford Street, Suite 201East Burlington, MA 01803(781) 273-5700Fax (781) 299-4867www.kema.comContactJennifer Krabbenhoeft, Director, Strategic

Marketing (303) 708-9355

Kristen Brewitt, Corporate Communications (781) 273-5700

KEMA offers technical and management consulting, testing, inspections, certification, and

training services to more than 500 electric and util-ity industry clients in 70 countries. KEMA applies global experience and regional insight in offering a full complement of services supporting generation through the consumer side of the meter. Headquar-tered in Arnhem, the Netherlands with subsidiaries and offices worldwide, KEMA employs more than 1,500 full-time professionals and leading experts in many facets of the energy utility industry.

LogicaCMGSee complete listing on page 52

Navigant Consulting, Inc.615 North Wabash AvenueChicago, IL 60611(800) 621-8390 x5736www.navigantconsulting.com

PA Consulting1750 Pennsylvania Avenue NWWashington, DC 20006(202) 442-2000www.paconsulting.com

POWER Engineers1295 South Eagle Flight WayBoise, ID 83709(208) 685-6355www.powereng.com

Radio Satellite Integrators19144 Van Ness AvenueTorrance, CA 90501(310) 787-7700www.radsat.com

Telemetric Corporation9941 West Emerald StreetBoise, ID 83704(208) 658-1292www.telemetric.net

UMS Group Inc.20 Waterview BoulevardParsippany, NJ 07054(973) 335-3555www.umsgroup.com

BUSINESS PROCESS

Boreas Group LLC730 South Elizabeth StreetDenver, CO 80209(303) 744-2108www.boreasgroup.com

Bottom Line Impact1040 North Michigan AvenuePasadena, CA 91104(626) 794-7894www.bottomlineimpact.com

E3 Consulting, LLC3333 South Bannock Street, Suite 500Englewood, CO 80110(303) 762-7070www.e3co.com

Elevon500 West Madison, Suite 1600Chicago, IL 60661(312) 258-6000www.elevon.cc

GE Energy4200 Wildwood ParkwayAtlanta, GA 30339(678) 844-5476www.gepower.com

Hannon Armstrong1997 Annapolis Exchange ParkwayAnnapolis, MD 21401(410) 571-9860www.hannonarmstrong.com

INOVx Solutions17701 Cowan, Suite 260Irvine, CA 92614(949) 752-3700www.inovx.com

Invensys33 Commercial StreetFoxboro, MA 02035(508) 543-8750www.invensys.com

Itron2818 North Sullivan RoadSpokane, WA 99216(800) 635-5461www.itron.com

Ivara CorporationSee complete listing on page 52

MCR Performance Solutions400 Skokie Boulevard, Suite 375Northbrook, IL 60062(847) 562-0066www.mcr-group.com

Panasonic Computer Solutions Company50 Meadowlands ParkwaySecaucus, NJ 07094(800) 662-3537, Option 5www.panasonic.com/toughbook/[email protected]

(800) 662-3537, Option 5

http://www.enspiria.com

http://www.kema.com

http://www.kema.com

http://www.panasonic.com/toughbook/utilities


For over fifteen years, Panasonic Computer Solutions Company has produced the industry’s most dependable mobile PCs—legendary Pana-sonic Toughbooks®. Toughbook reliability assures utility industry professionals maximum uptime and a significantly lower total cost of ownership. With durability built into every seal, hinge and connector, Toughbooks offer the highest reliability rates in the industry. Toughbooks are ideal whether you’re up in the bucket, above or below ground or driving over rural roads.

Toughbooks’ rugged features are unmatched for durability, with magnesium alloy cases, shock-mounted hard drives and moisture- and dust-resis-tant LCDs and keyboards. And with integrated wireless capabilities, utility workers are able to receive work orders and make schedule changes in the field, dispatch and manage crews from virtually anywhere and instantly access customer service histories and inventory information.

Platts UDI1200 G Street NW, Suite 1000Washington, DC 20005(202) 942-8788www.platts.com

Powerlink Corporation20 South Santa Cruz Avenue, Suite 320Los Gatos, CA 95030(408) 399-3355www.powerlink.com

Sargent & Lundy LLC55 East Monroe StreetChicago, IL 60603(312) 269-2000www.sargentlundy.com

SmartSignal Corporation901 Warrenville RoadLisle, IL 60532(630) 829-4000www.smartsignal.com

MAINTENANCE OUTSOURCING

Asset Management Consulting Limited221 St. John StreetClerkenwell, London, EC1V 4LYUnited Kingdom+ 44 (0) 20 7688 2828www.amcl.com

OTHER

SensorLink CorporationPO Box 3011975 Valley Highway #9Acme, WA 98220(360) 595-1000Fax (360) 595-1001www.sensorlink.comContactKen Borbe, Director of Marketing & Sales

(360) 595-1000

Manufactures meters, sensors, and recorders for primary voltage. They read current, voltage, power factor, harmonics, and micro-ohms resis-tance. They record profiles including current and power factor.

Our sensors measure in high voltage environ-ments where a traditional potential or current transformers may not be the answer. Our research team is dedicated to designing high quality, easy to use sensors that give the right answer. Past projects include: Open core current transformers, Non-Con-tact power factor sensors and Current sensors for special SCADA applications.

The Zen of Asset ManagementHahn Tram – Student of eastern philosophies, father of two, collector

of toy pigs, recipient of the Westinghouse Engineering Achievement

award, foremost industry expert on utility asset management.

While others fret, deliberate and struggle with the uncertainties ofasset management, Hahn applies the same calm intelligence,enlightened intuition and clear comprehension that pervade all aspectsof his life. And while elsewhere confusion may reign, Hahn’s confidentexperience make him always mindful of that which has come before,and that which is likely to follow. Ever aware of the need for balance,Enspiria’s Hahn Tram is the Zen of asset management.

Real People with Inspired Solutions to Real Problems

© 2

005

Ensp

iria

Solu

tions

, Inc

., an

Osm

ose

com

pany

.

www.enspiria.com • 303.641.2968

http://www.panasonic.com/toughbook/utilities

http://www.sensorlink.com

AD

VE

RT

IS

EM

EN

T


AD

VE

RT

IS

EM

EN

T



Asset Management:Optimized Business Use of Aging System

Information BaseINTRODUCTION

Oklahoma Electric and Gas is completing implementation of a comprehensive asset management framework for its distribution business unit. Working with KEMA T&D Consulting, OG&E has implemented a method based on a unique approach to T&D sys-tem management that incorporates an aging infrastructure model into its investment, utilization and maintenance decision-making processes. Its approach also applies an option-based portfolio optimization method to maximize “bang for the buck” performance enhancement of its power delivery operations.

OG&E moved to asset management to improve business per-formance. According to Terry Henry, Leader of Strategy, OG&E Electric Services, “Asset management is a change from traditional engineering standards and operations-guideline driven approach for decision making and spending to a management system that coordinates all decisions to maximize their joint contribution to the corporate business case. We believed it would help us focus on achieving maximum performance for our customers, our stockhold-ers, and our employees.”

Henry further notes that OG&E knew from the outset that it also needed to look at the issues and trends it faced due to continuing wear and tear on an aging T&D system. “We saw trends in our cost and operations data that indicated potential rising costs and reli-ability problems down the road. OG&E wanted to get out in front of such trends before they became problems. An asset management approach seemed the ideal way to put any such problems in a busi-ness perspective and to optimize their solution.”

PROPER TEAMWORK WAS A KEY

OG&E assembled a team that cut across all relevant depart-ments and backgrounds. They also went outside the company for expertise that could help them do the job quickly and well. “OG&E picked KEMA because it had a solid background in busi-ness-based asset management approaches,“ said Henry. “We were confident they would listen to us and work with us toward our goals and needs. KEMA had a solid, fact-based methodology

to address the aging infrastructure issues and made a good argu-ment for including those issues directly in the asset management project.” OG&E and KEMA also worked closely with ABB Power Technology Services, which provided expertise and support in evaluation, diagnosis, and condition assessment of major electri-cal equipment like transformers and breakers.

AGING INFRASTRUCTURES:

DURABILITY VERSUS JUST RELIABILITY

Lee Willis, Vice President of Asset Management and Planning for KEMA T&D Consulting, says that equipment aging and its effects are not well understood in the power industry, particularly their interaction with business performance. “When people talk about aging, they use it as a proxy for condition deterioration. Age and time in service create wear and tear that gradually erodes condi-tion.” But age itself is a good thing, Willis insists. “An optimum business strategy means getting the most value out of everything the utility owns or buys, and that means making it last as long as practicable.”

Working with utilities in Europe and the US, KEMA developed a unique “sustainable point” durability analysis of historical asset base operating data, which projects future changes in condition, failure rates, repair and replacement costs. The utility can see where, how, and why its costs and reliability challenges will change over time or as a function of decisions made about utilization and maintenance. Willis explains the approach finds an optimum sustainable business case. “There is an optimum age or condition profile for each class and type of equipment in the system, one most compatible with the utility’s business needs. Even fifty-year old poles and transformers can have decades of life remaining in them if well serviced. A utility that has the right base of information can determine where and how to allocate budget and scarce resources to do the best job of get-ting value out of its assets, old and new.”

A utility must be pro-active, and work hard, to get maximum value from its older equipment. “Older equipment can be a lot like older people,” explains Randy Schrieber, Senior Vice President, Power Technology Services, at ABB, whose group did much of the project’s major equipment evaluation. “It can go from good condition to bad more quickly than new. It’s prone to more fre-quent breakdowns. So you have to inspect and monitor it a bit more frequently, and maybe perform more maintenance. You have to balance those costs, remaining life, and risk of failure against the cost of replacement. This means a lot hinges on your under-standing of the equipment’s condition.”

OG&E’s Henry agrees, adding that the utility needs to look beyond just its equipment cost and lifetime issues, at Operations costs and performance issues, too. The optimum way to provide good service quality to customers might be to learn to ‘live with’ a slightly rising failure rate from aging equipment through improved operations. “You might eliminate the effects of aging trends on customer service by improving response and restoration – by more efficiently handling high outage rates.”

“KEMA had a solid, fact-based methodology

to address the aging infrastructure issues and made a good argument

for including those issues directly in the asset

management project.”

AD

VE

RT

IS

EM

EN

T


AD

VE

RT

IS

EM

EN

T



TAKE BUDGET OUT OF PROJECTS,

NOT PROJECTS OUT OF THE BUDGET

The best way to balance all these disparate issues is by using a rigorous asset management approach to select the best match-ing set of programs and strategies, says KEMA’s Willis. “But the key point, based on the results I’ve seen, is that you can’t ignore equipment aging trends if you’re trying to do effective asset man-agement. The two go hand in hand.”

Zac Hager, Strategy and Total Quality Engineer with OG&E’s Asset Management team, notes that KEMA helped his team apply two other features that further improve asset management. “First, we think in terms of three budget areas, investment, maintenance, and operations, rather than two.” On KEMA’s advice, the traditional O&M area is viewed as two separate spending areas that buy different types of performance. Inspection and maintenance extend equipment lifetime and lower failure rate. Operations budget improves response and restoration to lessen the effects of escalating failure rates. “It can make better business sense to prepare and be able to react well,” he says, “than to try to lower breakdown rates. The key, always, is to balance and target spending and resources across those areas well. Second, OG&E’s asset management framework uses an option-based approach which allows it create extra leverage as it balances activities and investment areas.”

KEMA’s Willis notes that several utilities have reported rather disappointing results from asset management. “In every case they were using an asset management portfolio method to prioritize or optimize projects defined and scoped in the traditional manner. That just doesn’t work. If the traditional project paradigm goes in, traditional results come out. You have to set up a system that will take budget out of projects, not projects out of the budget.” The secret is creating a set of flexible, performance-based project options guidelines to replace the traditional engineering standards approach to the assessment of needs and specification of proj-ect design. “There are always several ways to do any project,” Willis adds, each with different costs and different results. Half-measures sometimes deliver far more than half results, and are a preferred approach. Other times ‘gold-plating’ will be justified based on what it brings. “The key is to let the portfolio optimization see those options, their cost and results differences, and make the decision about how to best balance all options from all consider-ations.” Do that, Willis says, and the utility will get the big impacts its upper management is expecting.

Doug Patterson, Senior Planner at OG&E, and project man-ager for the effort, reports that a third of the project involved determining how to construct project and program options objec-tively, comprehensively, and efficiently. “Absolutely nothing can be untouchable when it comes to cost reduction. Remember, if you’re taking money from one place it’s because you want spend it where it will provide more value. It’s all to make the greatest contribution to overall company business goals.”

OG&E also uses its portfolio optimization to select the pen-etration of maintenance and technology programs. “A big part of our planned performance improvement is based on what you

might call optimized cherry picking,” Patterson adds. “We don’t have to inspect all breakers if we can target the ones that need service. Some feeder line switches produce six times the ‘bang’ when you automate them compared to others.” Patterson’s team entered such programs in targeted 10 percent increments and let the optimization determine penetration and timing.

GOOD RESULTS

“This project has gone a long way toward helping OG&E prepare for the future,” OG&E’s Henry reports. The biggest impact may not be the technical, but rather the institutional and team understand-ing OG&E gained. “This project helps us take a business basis in our decision-making and focus on coordinating our activities so all decisions are coherent.” And OG&E gained a firm handle on system aging and how to manage for the inevitable results of wear and tear on its system. “We better understand what we face. We know what we know and what we don’t know, along with the priorities we should put on improving areas of our knowledge base and our system. Most important, we have a good roadmap for the future, for both IT and process improvements, and for how to invest and manage our T&D system going forward.”

“The key is to let the portfolio optimization see those options, their cost and results differences, and make the decision about how to best balance all options from all considerations.”


Documents

asset management