Electric Compliance: Business Case

Managing their Electric Compliance Programs, managers and supervisors oversee budgets, plan and create work assignments, ensure customer safety, and monitor and report on regulatory compliance.

As part of their daily tasks, they monitor field work assignments, reports, and tracking. Most supervisors are reliant on static reports from multiple systems and applications. Without a unified software solution, they lack standardization and consistent rules for programs, making it difficult to manage the entire lifecycle and make timely decisions.

Devoid of a digital process for visually monitoring progress tracking, many utilities rely solely on the distribution and coordination of paper maps, forms, and Excel data for creating work assignments and monitoring completion. The absence of digital tools and visual progress tracking significantly increases the time spent on these tasks.

Improved Program Planning

Advanced Functionalities Dispatch work to field crews by batch or single orders and track work assignments; control field tools with ease

Single Source of Truth Manage all compliance activities in one application for field and office

Integrations Synchronize with your EAM, WMS, CMMS, and MWM systems to dispatch work to the field, schedule condition and cycle-based work, receive generated events from scheduling system, and get completion status information daily; support historical readings available in field as technical documents and SOPs

Better Support for New Programs Define preventive maintenance programs once and assets come and go with as-builts

Forecast Workload Visualize the amount of work that needs to be completed in the coming months; modify the workload to eliminate peaks and valleys

Streamlined Tracking and Reporting

Digital Documentation Trail Added field visibility in conjunction with built-in monitoring and reporting capabilities provide accurate and easy compliance reporting to regulatory agencies

Remain Compliant Easily make updates to reflect changing scope or regulations

Stay on Top of Compliance Activities Easily report program progress and handle audits and regulatory inquiries without extensive manual preparations

Automate Audits Eliminate manual effort preparing for compliance audits

Enhanced Field Visibility

Track Crews in Real-Time View breadcrumbs of actual crew locations; monitor progress of field crews through daily summary reports

Comprehensive Process View Easily monitor task completions and field inspections

Better Communication

Increased Collaboration Improve collaboration between office and field through a single application, leading to better work efficiency and accuracy

Create Different Views Assign separate dashboard views to specific users or stakeholder groups to show appropriate and relevant information; create a separate dashboard view to report compliance depending on the audience and the data to be displayed

Executives require high-level data and statistics to help drive utility goals and budgets. They ensure that all utility programs align with company strategic plans and visions.

Executives rely heavily on the reports driven by the Electric Compliance Program to determine future budgeting. However, since executives are using static, they often do not have a complete view of program status, leading to less funding for new technology and program expansion as well as tracking and traceability issues.

Executives reliant on a paper process must sift manually through multiple reports and documents to keep informed of company and program progress as well as to prepare for audits. Without real-time statistics, reports and updates do not always reach executives when they are needed, leading to a lack of decision-support data and timely reporting and updates. With access to questionable data, executives cannot confidently make crucial decisions or handle audits and regulatory inquiries without extensive preparation.

Holistic Compliance View

Better Decision-Making High-level executive dashboard view provides near real-time operational progress views for accurate, timely decision-making; visually see any statuses beyond their due dates

Organizational View Quickly view statuses of all utility programs leveraging Compliance Manager; make decisions at the organization level instead of just the program level

Visualization at Any Level See the status of all compliance activity for company, division, district, and field operator; view how the company is doing on single program type

Happy Customer Base

Higher Customer Satisfaction Alert customers to power outages in their areas through an add-on external dashboard; access and track customer questions and quickly dispatch crews to locations

During their inspections, crews take detailed notes and manually record the information through a paper process. Crews often must record their assessments in multiple places, leading to repetitive work and entry inaccuracies due to non-standardized collection forms. The assessments, inputted by the crews, with possible errors, determine the post-work audits for electric utilities. Additionally, if exceptions are identified, crews must record and follow-up on those separately from where the assessments are recorded.

The inspection notes are then used to create work assignments. Without an automated system, most utilities must manually create these assignments. Without one application for progressing the lifecycle of the work orders, collaboration between the office and field is challenging.

Without spatial maps or real-time data, crews use paper maps to find work locations and complete work assignments, leading to inefficient time management. As a result, crews must make multiple visits to the same work locate to complete work and rework.

Streamlined Data Collection

Synchronized Mobile Devices Receive and update inspection assignments and assigned events

Standardize Field Collection Configurable and intuitive data collection forms organize work more efficiently with one form for crews to fill out, minimizing the need to perform rework

Exceptions Tracking Log and record all work in one convenient location, including exceptions, for better record keeping and accuracy

Work Offline Enter inspection notes in one application at any field location, on or off the grid, and use downloadable work assignments, map layers, and events

Advanced Work Planning

Tailored to Your Workflows Configure program once and record for continuous survey and inspection use

Schedule Work Generate the defined work assignments and schedule the work for each of the facilities or territories that require inspection

Automated Work Assignments

Location Visualization Visually view the location and progress of all assigned work events – not started, partially complete, and complete, as well as any newly added work

Task Completions Work assignments can be directed automatically to field crews for completion

Completed Assignments See how many completed assignments are being uploaded and the number of pictures or videos taken

Streamlined Workflow Lists activities that need to be performed based on what is installed at an inspection site or area to be surveyed; users can add related tasks to be performed in the field

After the completed field work synchronizes with the application, the back-office verifies that the inspections and corrective fieldwork were done accurately. Additionally, the office monitors the performance of the field workers as well as manages and addresses exceptions work.

Since multiple systems are used for recording fieldwork, office technicians must cross-reference different sets of data. Without a cohesive solution for managing the assignment lifecycle nor visibility into the progress of assignments, technicians must inefficiently investigate each individual assignment for completion.

Easily Validate Work

Field-Generated Breadcrumbs Verify field crew got to event through documented verification

Review Exceptions Once the work is completed in the field and synced back to the servers, investigate any exceptions the field crew may have found while in the field

Streamlined Exceptions Tracking and Reporting

Exceptions Reporting Track how much work needs to be done to remain in compliance; have a better understanding of all company exceptions and their statuses

Corrections Reporting Dashboard Digitally monitor performance and completion of assigned work and rework in a single-source truth application

Assign and Dispatch Work

Dynamically Creates Work Automatically create work areas that were defined in a saved program and schedule the work for each of the facilities or areas that require inspection

Plan Work Assign and dispatch work to various field members by crew, user, and priority; visually see all work required within the Due Date for specific work types and assignments

Assign Exceptions Configure follow-on activity to schedule and assign any type of exception required for your business such as vegetation issues, can’t get ins, etc.

Automated Email System Investigate and reassign corrective work to specific users or mailboxes when an exception is recorded