UDC assisted The Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc., collectively Hawaiian Electric (Oʻahu), Hawaiʻi Electric Light (The Big Island of Hawaiʻi) and Maui Electric (Maui, Molokai and Lanai), in rolling out the Enterprise GIS Implementation project at Hawaiian Electric.
This initiative provides a key foundational element for their energy management strategy and sets the stage for large payload applications such as Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS) for the utility. Hawaiian Electric began work in July of 2015 on an ArcGIS common Enterprise GIS design and implementation, including utilization of Schneider Electric ArcFM.
GIS Implementation Goals
The Project goal was to move each of the companies from individual GIS systems to an enterprise GIS system that could support an increased level of grid management and provide the efficiency of a single enterprise level system across the companies. A key aspect of the project was to adopt a common business approach to representing the assets and determining how those assets would be managed going forward. Adopting common representation and management of assets was a significant challenge handled by the companies as it involved a migration from an Intergraph GTech solution on Oahu and a move to enterprise level Esri architecture on the other islands. Data governance and organization was also designed and implemented.
UDC’s Role
The UDC assignment was to design and deploy an Esri® System of Record and System of Engagement using both Desktop and Esri ArcGIS Server. Schneider ArcFM was configured and deployed in conjunction with custom QA/QC tools designed to run as a precursor to posting sessions to confirm edits. Key integrations, such as OMS, were assisted by UDC’s integration team.
UDC worked with Hawaiian Electric to figure out the new business paradigm for all companies from the existing blend of business practices and asset information and translated those practices to the presentation of the asset information. Electric Distribution, Generation, Transmission and Fiber assets were included in the Project.
Key Project Benefits
Hawaiian Electric was able to standardize and streamline business processes, improve cross training of team members, and reduce operating costs because of the unified effort supporting a single system implementation.
Other key benefits include:
- ADMS Enablement
- The key benefit of the project is providing a single Enterprise GIS that will enable ADMS and its advanced applications.
- Ease of Maintenance
- Another key benefit is to place all the business units on a single GIS which allows only one system to be maintained.
- Leveraging Current Investments
- The Enterprise GIS allows key existing applications, like Outage and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), to be deployed through the entire company.
Enterprise GIS Implementation Services and Solutions
UDC provided all primary services for the Enterprise GIS implementation project including design, specifications, data migration, management of the data migration component, and concurrent mapping to support system currency during the project and ensure there would be no backlog at Go Live. UDC also provided application development, integration, testing, governance, and overall program management for Hawaiian Electric.
Esri Services provided significant contributions with the development and deployment of a number of applications and the construction of an SAP integration.
ArcFM enhancements were developed by UDC to support printing and plotting, operational feeder management, job logging information, and AutoUpdaters for symbology as well as editing efficiencies. The custom QA/QC editing tools provided are configurable by the utility to adjust for most future changes without development. Hawaiian Electric has the option to include warnings that allow session post or errors that stop session post until corrected, which ensures accuracy of GIS edits. Assisting the company to transition to the new environment, UDC provided training on the extended functionality enhancements to ArcFM and Esri API.
System integrations included the company’s custom Mobile Inspection Management tools and Load Value Management Systems. UDC also built an integration tool to support engineer drawings through an extract for MicroStation based on a drawn extent.
UDC is proud to have been included on this historic project for the Hawaiian Electric Company and continues to work in support mode and on ongoing initiatives with the company.
UDC invites you to contact us to learn more about our business technology services.