During this era of digital transformation, many utility companies are reaching across organizational divides to connect their business processes and cohesively move their businesses forward using GIS. Positioning GIS as a foundational enterprise system for utility operations is driving organizations to redefine how they use data, both at the executive and operational levels. In doing so, the role and currency of data have become increasingly important for powering critical, daily operations.
Dominion Energy Virginia (DEV) and Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative (SSVEC) are two utilities making these transformational changes. Both organizations are experiencing firsthand the benefits of using GIS as the key enterprise system for bridging their field and back-office business processes. The shift to an enterprise organizational structure has presented advantages for both utilities, but not without the growing pains of maintaining data currency during this transformational period.
In this UDC Conversation™, GIS Managers Jenny Burgess of DEV and Kurt Towler of SSVEC share their journeys to Enterprise GIS and how they are approaching data currency against the backdrops of their digital transformations.
Evolution of the Digital Utility – Deconstructing Silos
The early 2000s brought sweeping organizational changes for companies with the assimilation of GIS into the utility sector. Before the 21st century, most utilities operated their business process workflows within organizational silos. The lack of a centralized enterprise system isolated business processes and teams and hindered effective decision-making at the company level – creating differing standards, separate maps and data, multiple systems for operations, varying decision models, increased operational costs, and siloed asset databases for the businesses.
The acceptance of GIS in the utility industry was slow-moving at first; utility businesses were initially reluctant to share data for fear of being asked to change their long-standing processes or take on additional responsibilities. Over time, utilities realized the value and GIS evolved into a versatile tool that provides a complete view of utility operations while meeting the specific needs of the business. GIS is today embraced as a true enterprise system for the Digital Utility®. The need for high-quality utility data increases daily and has become a focal point for utilities looking to provide first-rate customer service.
The Utility Experience
DEV and SSVEC are experiencing this powerful transformation unfolding within their organizations as the GIS applications for managing daily operations continue to grow. “The whole company has come to appreciate the value of GIS and knows that they can reach out to us. The way data is used has become so much greater,” remarks Jenny.
When Jenny joined DEV in 2001, the utility had recently completed a conversion initiative to input its paper maps into the GIS. Largely ahead of the curve, most utility assets were loaded into the GIS but their associated data wasn’t fully utilized due to the newness of the spatial technology.
The information in the GIS has since become the backbone of the utility’s operations and critical related systems, including the Outage Management System (OMS), Network Management System (NMS), and Electronic Switching. The currency and accuracy of her team’s data have become vital as a result. “The more we use GIS data, the more we integrate it with other things, the more key it is that it’s right,” she shares.
Kurt has witnessed a similar journey since joining SSVEC in 2005. The cooperative’s initial priority was to get its maps up to date. “When I started, we had maps that were ten years out of date,” he says. After transitioning to GIS and streamlining the work order process, SSVEC got the turnaround time of its mapping to under two days and now operates in real-time mode.
“If you don’t have data, you just have whitespace on a map.”
Kurt Towler, Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative
Approaching Utility Data Currency
These revolutionary changes aren’t happening overnight. A modern-day challenge with maintaining utility data currency stems from building the bridges between the different business processes during this transformational change. Kurt and Jenny are tackling this challenge within their organizations by standardizing processes, fostering team communication, and augmenting their GIS data workforce through partnerships.
Value in Following Process
Ensuring timely updates from the point of field construction to when the map is updated has become a focus for the GIS departments. Both organizations are implementing unified processes to help bridge the work performed in the field and back-office.
Meeting DEV’s two-day posting goal requires a great deal of coordination and communication. Process discipline has helped Jenny and her team achieve these goals and find ways to improve the process at the same time. “Maybe something got built in the field and didn’t make its way to GIS for posting in a timely manner,” she says. “We’re investigating those things, figuring out what we could do better to improve.”
One such area is partial posting. Large construction projects can take longer to reach the mapping team, since these are typically completed in phases before being shared. “We’re working through processes to remedy some of that, maybe changing the workflow and the order to improve it so that it gets to us more quickly in the lifecycle of a project.”
“We’re all kind of at a place where we’re doing a whole lot of things at the same time.”
Jenny Burgess, Dominion Energy Virginia
Kurt and his team have similar posting expectations and process gaps. “There’s this huge desire for high-quality information, and it’s easy to make a drawing on a map, but it’s not easy to fill out all the attributes that are required for all these downstream applications. It takes a lot of effort to collect and manage and maintain high-quality information.” It’s a complex process with a lot of moving parts, and Kurt’s working to improve the processes at an organizational level rather than just his GIS team.
“The next phase is really working organizationally in that larger umbrella with teams to say, ‘How can we change those processes or improve them so that we’re not fighting each other quite as much on getting great information.’” He sees the way forward as integrating and automating the construction process for end-to-end real-time updates, which is where SSVEC is headed.
Considering the People
Data is only as good as the people behind it. For Jenny, that means being mindful of change management needs and getting input from the users most impacted by the business processes, including the field workers and GIS editors. She’s taking the opportunity of upcoming software upgrades to collaborate with the teams and collectively find ways to improve the construction to mapping process.
“Making sure that everybody really understands – the people in the field, the people in the office, the people that use all the mobile maps – that they all just really understand why it matters. We all take ownership together on doing our part to make sure that the data is right,” Jenny says.
Kurt is getting ahead of the curve by making the business processes as user-friendly, accessible, and transparent as possible. “What we’ve seen as an organization is people are 100% behind us as long as we don’t inconvenience them too much on their side of the work,” he explains. His team is exploring digital survey forms to streamline the asset field collection process. “It isn’t just ‘can we go digital?’ It’s ‘can we change how we do business to make this process more transparent and faster to improve?’”
SSVEC is looking to improve processes for all cooperative members. For example, SSVEC recently deployed a GIS dashboard outage management solution for tracking outages and communicating outage statuses to members. Impacted members can choose to complete a survey and request a callback from the cooperative regarding the power outage. This feedback loop is helping ensure the level of quality service the cooperative is known for. “It’s about exceptional service, and GIS is 100% key to that across the entire organization,” Kurt says.
Partnering for Success
The increasing role of GIS in day-to-day operations has dropped an abundance of data into the laps of GIS departments. Most utility mapping departments face similar challenges around keeping up with the increased business requests for current asset information. DEV and SSVEC have benefitted significantly from investing in a trusted business process partner to help manage their data currency.
DEV has historically maintained its electrical model and data in-house. Only more recently has DEV partnered with UDC to help offset the data workload. In Jenny’s opinion, one of the most significant advantages of this partnership is that it allows her team to focus on the high-value initiatives, such as moving to Esri’s Network Management, replacing their Work Management System, and enhancing their outage management solutions, without sacrificing the daily routine work.
“I think most of us at some point along the way are going to be doing something different with our GIS, whether it’s upgrades, work management solutions, or outage management solutions. To have a partner help you be able to dedicate your most experienced people to those projects is so valuable,” she says. “We can have help as long as we need it. It’s not the same as asking for employees who you might not need in five years when the project work starts to die down.”
Similarly, partnering with UDC has provided Kurt’s team the flexibility to focus on meeting the unique needs of all its members, something the company takes pride in. “Handling everything that’s happening at scale, that’s an extremely difficult problem for the organization. GIS, the work with UDC, keeping the data current – all these efforts are driven towards handling things at scale but also giving us the time and energy to handle the individual member moments that are required,” Kurt says. One such recent moment was when an oxygen reliant customer called about a power outage. “They expected the power to stay on all the time. That’s an important conversation we have to be able to handle as an organization,” he says.
Looking Ahead – Getting GIS in the Room
Jenny and Kurt both see advanced technology implementations and their accompanying automation as the next big areas of opportunity for utilities, making current data non-negotiable. “If we want smart outage sensors to locate and isolate a fault, we’re going to have to build those things correctly, and then we’re going to have to be even more diligent about the quality of our data and how quickly it’s updated,” Jenny says. Kurt adds that the new challenge with managing utility data and new technologies will now be turning attention towards deconstructing the partner silos. “How do we bring our partners together so that we’re sharing data correctly in a timely way? As these systems become more complex, waiting 18 months to replace a pole is no longer an option.”
When asked about the future role of enterprise GIS data, Jenny and Kurt see a growing need for digital utilities, especially with decision-making. “I see GIS playing a huge role in that transformation itself of how we make decisions and our internal capacity to grow,” Kurt says. “We need to be in there at the beginning of the process so that we can help make better decisions.” Jenny adds, “The businesses can reach out to us because they need to make a decision about something, and they need to compile some data in a unique way so that they can make those decisions. That sort of thing really helps the company start choosing the right things to invest in and figure out.”
Moving Forward Together
As Jenny and Kurt discussed their challenges around managing data currency, they weren’t surprised to hear how similar their experiences aligned. “I’m sure you feel the same level of being spread thinly that I do,” Kurt jokes. Agreeing, Jenny says, “It never ceases to amaze me. We can be half a country away. We could be using a different GIS. And somehow, we’re all in the same place, and it’s strangely comforting.”
At the end of the day, data doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t care whether you’re a member-owned cooperative surrounded by mountains or a utility powerhouse with millions of customers; the challenges faced and experiences felt are the same. And that is strangely comforting.
About Dominion Energy Virginia
Dominion Energy Virginia supports nearly 2.8 million electric customers and manages upwards of 60,000 miles of overhead and underground distribution lines in Virginia and northeast North Carolina. The GIS business team in Virginia supports five geodatabases, including electric transmission, electric distribution, substation, and both gas and electric privatization outside the service area (bases in Texas, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania). Besides the business team in Virginia, there is a separate business team for South Carolina, which includes electric and gas transmission and distribution.
About Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative
Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative supplies power to over 45,000 members and maintains 4,100 miles of electrical lines in southeastern Arizona. Since its founding in 1938, it has grown into the largest electric cooperative in Arizona. As a member-owned distribution cooperative, SSVEC is committed to providing exceptional service to the communities it serves. SSVEC operates a wide range of technologies – from outage management to full mobile GIS to cloud-based services. The service territory is diverse, with a mixture of remote and urban, rancher and city dweller.
