This month, I celebrated the anniversary of becoming a registered professional engineer. It brought to mind the time I got the notification in the mail that I had passed the grueling exam and was now officially a registered professional electrical engineer. I spent the first part of my career as an engineer in a consulting engineering company and went on to spend nearly 20 years at a utility, first as head of engineering and then as head of electric operations.
The engineering training, practice, and management experience continued to reinforce for me the power of location. Nearly everything I did, whether as an engineer or as a manager, seemed to rely on the notion of where: Where are there power failures? Where are there unhappy customers? Where would a single event cause the most havoc? I spent time traveling with the crews and talking to customers (often unhappy ones), the media, and first responders. The conversations and activities almost always involved location.
As a professional engineer, I realized that spatial technology is fundamental to the engineering profession. Working for a utility, I became keenly aware that an engineer's job is not confined to building things but also includes serving the needs of the entire enterprise, from operations and engineering to customer care, logistics, financial services, environmental issues, and land management.
Consequently, I became enamored with GIS and founded one of the earliest GIS programs at an electric utility. I have seen the evolution of GIS technology since those early, heady days when GIS was called automated mapping/facilities management (AM/FM) systems. While there have been many improvements in GIS technology over the years, I felt that there was something missing. It seemed as if most utilities focused heavily on the automation of mapping rather than on the value of the information on the maps. For many, the GIS produced paper map products for use in the field. Some forward-thinking utilities provided maps on field devices, but these were largely copies of the data from the GIS with some rudimentary mapping and redline capability.
In addition, I felt that the GIS was underutilized. It was hardly ever used outside the engineering and operations departments. Meanwhile, consumers were using Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube with their friends and families in real time. In Phil Simon's seminal book, The Age of the Platform, he says that a platform "allows people to reach and connect with one another and obtain information." It has only been in about the last five years that Esri's GIS has evolved from a mapping, analytics, and asset data management application into a true platform technology. The real value of the GIS platform is the ability to connect people with one another to improve productivity, enhance customer service, ensure safe work practices, and meet all regulatory requirements. Esri's platform can connect all aspects of the business.
Esri's spatial platform is transformational for utilities. Like its social media cousins, it provides immediate access, awareness, and analytics to anyone on any device, both inside and outside the utility.
Over the last several years, customers have been adopting Esri technology with spectacular results. They are deploying simple, easy-to-use apps instead of complicated, custom-made applications that require substantial support. Like social media platforms, Esri has embraced the notion of identity, regardless of whether someone is using a desktop computer, a smart watch, a smartphone, or a tablet, the apps just work—and they are configured for their individual use. The apps are independent of the device and its operating system—just like consumers have been used to.
Even though the platform is simple to use, customers can perform sophisticated spatial analytics out of the box. They can consume web services from millions of websites to enhance their analytics. They can share their data with other organizations and agencies without customizations. In effect, the platform has two product lines that work seamlessly together: the professional GIS—embodying rich editing, analytic, and visualization capabilities—and the smart consumer GIS for tasks like mapping.
Recently, at DistribuTECH 2018 in San Antonio, Esri introduced its new network management technology, the ArcGIS Utility Network Management Extension, which is loaded with features and capabilities. Yet the real story is that this innovative technology aligns fully with the rest of the ArcGIS platform. It brings advanced network capability to anyone, on any device. Rather than use client/server technology, the Esri platform utilizes web services, even for network editing. Esri has adopted the same technology philosophy as modern consumer technology platforms. Esri technology is truly the world’s first complete GIS platform. Users can migrate to this innovative technology directly from their legacy non-Esri GIS or from any Esri release.
With the new ArcGIS Utility Network Management Extension], utilities can model their networks in a more complete way. They can view and model their substations, vaults, and power plants in 3D. They can model cables inside conduits, create structural attachments, and export seamlessly to their real-time systems.
For me, as a registered professional engineer, this is an exciting time to witness a modern GIS platform helping utilities transform their business.
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