Aquila Networks Canada (Alberta, Canada) empowers its employees. No, this isn't a nauseating company platitude but reality for Aquila's field personnel. Out of necessity, they've had to expand their roles well beyond their traditional duties. Linemen are leading the way by taking ownership of the distribution system and driving all service and maintenance work.

The business environment at Aquila has changed significantly over the last few years. Competitive industry pressures prompted management to take a hard look at infrastructure costs and customer service. Consequently, Aquila made some tough and innovative decisions to remain competitive.

The new business environment led Aquila to deploy mobile technologies to effectively manage major changes in its administrative, operations and maintenance support areas. The result yielded an AM/FM system that models Aquila's entire electrical network linking transmission and distribution facilities (including 185,000 trans-formers, 900,000 conductor segments and more than 1 million poles) to actual geographical and customer information. Most importantly, it provides field personnel with the critical information they need to fulfill service expectations.

Changing Business Environment

The choice to mass deploy mobile field technology was predicated by other important decisions. To begin, Aquila staff reductions led to the closure of all public service offices, including many complete service centers. These efforts left virtually no administrative help for the linemen.

At the same time, customers expect higher levels of service to satisfy their sensitive operations. Failing to enhance service requirements might result in losing customers to competition. Municipalities have gone a step further. Many have negotiated service levels into their new franchise agreements that include financial penalties if specific service levels are not met. This requires increased attention to service levels to retain customers.

The mobile system provides the means to validate performance levels and show municipalities the exact level of service they are receiving. It even indicates to field personnel when to initiate payment for any penalties due.

Aquila also decided to centralize maintenance functions for its distribution facilities. It formed an asset management department in its head office to overview all maintenance activities. In the past, one field person from each of the 58 service points was responsible for submitting requests for maintenance dollars for the next year.

Seldom did these requests have any concrete facts or evidence supporting the need for the maintenance dollars other than the word of the field person. These maintenance requests were sent to the five regional senior engineers who managed the maintenance budget for the next year. The managers typically split the budgeted dollars evenly as possible among the 58 service points. This process did not ensure the distribution facilities in the worst condition received the necessary funds.

Today Aquila has three maintenance planners who manage the entire maintenance budget for the year. They receive information from all 200 customer service linemen to help prioritize the required maintenance work. In addition, they receive outage statistics and momentary trip information for each of the 450 distribution circuits. The limited maintenance dollars are allocated to the 15 worst-performing feeders of the year, which ensures constant system improvement and improved customer service.

Success Factors

The mobile technology implementation is producing the paybacks promised in the original business case and has improved the image of the AM/FM system dramatically. Everyone from senior management on down speaks in glowing terms of its value and accomplishments. Overnight it has gone from a system that was a deep dark money pit to one of three indispensable mission-critical enterprise systems.

The field staff now uses this mobile technology as its only source of facility information and has come to trust it completely. If the field staff comes across errors, it willingly sends in corrections; these corrections are completed immediately for the staff to see and use. The key to any successful software or hardware implementation is having end-user acceptance. This means the field staff willingly uses the system and actually look for ways to use these tools even more extensively.

Aquila Networks Canada not only has succeeded in meeting its intended outcome but also has exceeded its expectations. The field staff has developed a sense of ownership in both the software tools and more importantly the data. It now helps drive enhancements in the software.

Aquila's mobile technology is now being used as a full distribution asset management system. This integrated electronic solution has created cost savings by reducing the need and time for printing, plotting, data translation and facility checking. The field staff can record all required information on the distribution facilities right at the field site. This allows everyone timely access and visibility to all facility information.

Capturing the Field Data

Linemen begin capturing data by retrieving all map facilities for their current location by pressing Shift F4. The Locate GPS function uses the vehicle's global positioning system (GPS) unit, recording their location and centering a map on their truck location using the mobile mapping system called Field View.

The linemen then identify any and all feeder work using the detailed Line Patrol function in Field View. Line Patrol has pull-down menus and virtually all input is point-and-click. The linemen can record the actions required and determine the priority using established criteria and the resources required (equipment, man-hours and access) to do the maintenance work. Comment fields are also available for any information that is not covered in the pull-down menus or point-and-click selections.

An example of the Line Patrol functionality is seen in responding to a reported “bad” “light out” at a municipal streetlight. A lineman first enters the light out date and the problem. Then he uses a report to address the problem and make the necessary repairs, after which he records the light on date. This serves as the permanent record of service and is reported on demand or at the end of each month for the municipality. If the lineman has not met the service levels, this triggers the process of crediting the municipality for two months of free power on its next bill, based on the billing for that particular light.

At any time during the workday, the lineman can send this information to the corporate system by logging onto the network from either the service point office or his home via modem. Once logged onto Aquila's wide area network (WAN), he pushes a button in Field View called Send Packet to Server. The packet is sent to the server into a folder called Incoming and then an automated routine runs every two hours updating the database. Within two hours, the data the lineman has recorded is entered into the corporate oracle database and is available for everyone in the enterprise to use.

Linemen are responsible for entering every power outage on the electric distribution system, both planned and unplanned. Again, with the Locate GPS function, linemen press Shift F4 keys and center the maps on the location of their trucks. They then evoke Aquila's Distribution Outage Statistics (DOSS) function by pressing the F6 key and a dialogue box lets them record the time off and time on by simply editing the present time, which is displayed in both of those fields. They proceed by choosing the Cause and Component Failed items from the pull-down menus. Finally, they trace the circuit starting from the failed feature or device. This ensures complete and accurate information on the impacted kilometers of line, number of customers and outage-affected circuits.

Linemen are diligent about performing the updates for three basic reasons. First, the administrative help is gone, so there is no one else to complete the task. Second, the information helps resolve customer complaints and questions regarding service reliability. Finally, and probably most important, outage statistics are required to qualify for the limited budget dollars. If outages are not reported correctly, their area may not get the attention it needs, knowing that only the 15 worst-performing feeders are allocated funds.

Corporate Data Access

Data is of no real value unless it can be accessed quickly and easily. To enable enterprise-wide access to the field captured data, a series of easy-to-use visual basic (VB) applications were developed. These VB applications allow users to pick and filter the information they want to see by pointing and clicking on the appropriate radio buttons. They then receive an electronic report in the form of an Excel spreadsheet. This Excel report can be manipulated, sorted or filtered further to satisfy the user's requirements. Many different departments within Aquila — network services, maintenance, planning, engineering, call center, dispatch, communications and senior management — use these reports, which also are provided to outside contractors when they are responsible for completing the maintenance work.

Using the Data

Aquila's three maintenance planners produce the reports for the entire service area using the VB application called Line Patrol. The maintenance planners sort these reports by feeder, and analyze the priorities and requirements the linemen have suggested. The maintenance planners then determine what work will proceed on the 15 worst performing feeders along with any critical work that is required on the remaining 435 feeders. Estimates are prepared and orders approved using the linemen's information, then released to dispatch along with an Excel spreadsheet outlining the work.

As a further example, linemen patrol streetlights on a regular basis, recording any that are not on and if possible why the light is out. They inform dispatch when they have completed a town patrol.

The next morning the dispatcher produces a Line Patrol streetlight report for each town completed. He prioritizes the streetlight repairs along with all other work in each area, ensuring that the work is completed within the service level agreement for the respective towns. He then dispatches that work along to the linemen in the form of Excel spreadsheets to show which streetlights need to be repaired and what is wrong with each light. The linemen then use the Excel spreadsheets to gather the material they need. The Excel spreadsheets also are used in Field View to show where these lights are located.

Aquila built a function in Field View to help linemen manage the work being dispatched on the various Excel spreadsheet reports. Once the Excel spreadsheets are on the linemen's hard drives, they use a function in Field View called Hi-light Repairs. The linemen select a spreadsheet and initiate a search by selecting a column and row. The Field View compares the feature IPID (unique identifier) on the spreadsheet with features in this area. Once it finds a match, it goes to the next feature until it has found all the features that require work, then it will highlight these in his current view.

At a glance, linemen can plan all their work in the area, saving a great deal of time and effort. They can either refer to the spreadsheet or query the feature in Field View for the repair details. Once they complete the work, they enter it in Field View against the actual feature. This electronically informs the maintenance group that the work is completed and updates the corporate records.

The DOSS is another invaluable resource for linemen. Again, to use the VB application, the lineman logs onto Aquila's WAN and generates an Excel spreadsheet report. If a customer calls to report an outage, a report can be produced within seconds, verifying the outage, time off, time on, the cause and the component that failed. Most customers are impressed with this kind of service and the detailed information. Users from the head office can also access maps that show all outages for a specific time period on a particular feeder.

This integrated mobile data management system has contributed to making Aquila's Field View one of the premier field applications in North America. Aquila continues to host visits and provide demonstrations to other interested utilities.

Recently on one of these visits, riders from another utility asked a lineman, “If you could only have one tool, what would it be?” The lineman replied back quickly and firmly, “It would definitely be Field View.” Aquila's field staff has taken a real sense of pride, enthusiasm and ownership in the Field View application. The 200 linemen and 100 contractors now feel that this tool is theirs and will tell you that data is their new lifeline.

Pat Drinnan has been with Aquila Networks Canada (formerly TransAlta Utilities and Utilicorp) for 33 years in various positions from engineering technician to area business supervisor. He spent 20 years in the engineering design sections of TransAlta, and was involved with the first automated mapping system, which was started in 1978, as user representative helping with the original specifications. He took over his current role as supervisor of Aquila's AM/FM production system at the end of conversion in January 1995.

Pat.Drinnan@aquila.com