As we discussed in our previous article, the advent of digitization is changing the game for utility operations and engineering professionals. From field crews leveraging digital. mobile technology for fast and accurate record keeping to how this data is used in the back office and across the enterprise, in this article we’ll look at the practical implications of digitization for the field workforce, particularly in reference to how leveraging geospatial data for field work execution is a key game-changer.
Spatially enabled, at the speed of work
Geospatial solutions have continued to evolve since their earliest versions of tools for engineering, field work, and more. While many of the earlier “GIS” solutions provided benefits for utilities, like locational data on assets across vast service territories and connectivity models for distribution networks, challenges persisted. These included, perhaps most prominently, timeliness and accuracy of data.
Utilities often had lags of weeks or months for work in the field to be reflected accurately in their GIS. While this is a considerably less-than-ideal situation for field crews, the implications of this go beyond the field. GIS data “touches” and supports numerous systems across the utility enterprise, many of these being operationally critical. GIS data supports outage management systems, asset management, and advanced distribution management systems. These multi-million-dollar investments cannot perform as designed without quality data that the GIS needs to perform.
This brings us back to the field. Equipping field crews with the technology that meets not only their needs (easy/fast use, access to critical data to complete work), but also the accurate and timeliness requirements from the enterprise is a huge step in the right direction.
Today, utility field crews are predominately using iPads, but also have access to ruggedized laptops in the truck and more recently, smartphones. Significantly, a single field user may access their applications and data via all three different devices.
Matt Roberts, Director, Utility Solutions at geospatial network management solution provider IQGeo commented on what he is seeing in the field: “It is no longer enough to say ‘we have pushed GIS to the field.’ Field crews and, in fact, the entire enterprise now demand that they move their field computing from traditional GIS mobile solutions to a spatially aware mobile and work execution platform.” Matt added that core requirements include seamless mobility, robust network modeling, and flexible workflows enabling field crews to interact with and perform work against the network assets.
Additional considerations for spatially enabled field work execution include:
Consolidating multiple legacy mobile applications to a single platform, accelerating efficiency and effectiveness,
Ability to manage planned and unplanned work
Provide full GIS context, and
Manage all aspects of work management (i.e. scheduling, crew managing, and ticket management).
“IRL:” The Empowered Field Crew
What does it look like to take these concepts to the field “in real life?” Working with IQGeo partner Central Service Association, Central Electric Power Association (“Central EPA”), a 38,000 meter electric coop in Mississippi, decided to move forward with IQGeo solutions to improve their field operations.
Like many utilities, Central EPA had made progress in field crew operations and GIS capabilities, but the utility still struggled with delayed damage assessments, documenting vegetation management, lengthy onboarding processes for new technology users, difficulty in tracking in-house line patrol and pole inspection work, and a nagging continued reliance on paper. Far from being unique to Central EPA, these challenges are endemic to the utility industry.
Central EPA management cited the need for a solution that would provide a flexible mobile application, two-way updates between the office the and the field, ease of use, and easy field document updating. One additional dynamic that is outside of the utility enterprise, but important for a seamless solution, is the coordination with and visibility into contractor updates. After an extensive evaluation of different solutions and technologies, Central EPA management landed on the IQGeo solution.
Commenting on the impact of working with the IGGeo team and solution, Dale Scott, IT, GIS and Dispatching, Central EPA said that, “when we did damage assessments entirely on paper it might take several hours to compile the full degree of damage. Now we can do it in a fraction of the time.” Additional improvements speak to the improvements in speed, accuracy, and ease-of-integration. These include use of a single application across workflows, streamlined inspections, restorations are several hours faster, enterprise-wide adoption, and – the ultimate goal – accurate and timely documentation.
The power of data at the speed of work
As demonstrated above, today’s utilities are operating in environments that require flexibility, accuracy, openness, and speed. These needs are elevated in complex field work environments that have historically been populated with clunky, disjointed processes and solutions.
Today, however, new operating paradigms are emerging that are creating new opportunities for efficiency and accuracy in the field. To explore this new paradigm visit here. To view the PowerSession webinar that does a deep dive, go here.