NSTAR Electric and Gas has been making changes in its approach to managing system and customer outages. “We will not keep our customers in the dark literally or figuratively,” according to a mandate set forth by NSTAR CEO Tom May.

The first step necessary to achieve this mission is to reduce the number of outages that customers experience. Over the past three years, NSTAR (Westwood, Massachusetts, U.S.) has invested in upgrades to its substations and distribution infrastructure, increasing the average Months Between Interruptions that customers experience from 8.5 to 11.2. However, recognizing that some outages are inevitable, NSTAR has restructured its Electric Operations organization to include a dedicated department whose focus is the outage response and the reduction of Customer Average Interruption Duration Indices (CAIDI). Prior to these changes, outage restoration was the responsibility of the Dispatch organization in conjunction with the Construction and Maintenance operating divisions, and the CAIDI reflected this fragmentation. NSTAR also has invested in the tools and IT systems necessary to rapidly assess and respond to outages and to provide its customers with timely and accurate information about its restoration efforts. For example, prior to the system upgrades, estimated restoration times were differentiated by the type of transformer that served the customer.

NSTAR has been moving to a performance-driven culture that measures those elements key to serving the customer well: call answer rates, improvements in CAIDI and System Average Interruption Frequency (SAIFI), and how quickly calls are analyzed and Estimated Times of Restoration (ETRs) are available. NSTAR's goal is to be among the top quartile of all utilities in terms of performance by 2005.

Investments in the Infrastructure

Load growth in Massachusetts in the late 1990s exceeded forecasts. The rapid rise of technology-based businesses that settled in the area brought growth in both the residential and commercial sectors. This growth used much of the spare capacity in NSTAR's distribution network. In some cases, the growth forced NSTAR to run its system at the upper limits of normal equipment ratings during peak load periods. Operating in this fashion taxed the infrastructure and had a negative impact on overall reliability.

Since 2001, NSTAR has invested in system capital improvements, including the construction and expansion of key bulk and distribution substations, and a circuit reliability program that has included conversion of aging 4-kV radial UG infrastructure with modern 15-kV-class underground equipment operating in an open loop configuration and reconductoring distribution supply circuits. The result has been a significant increase in system capacity, which allows for greater flexibility and higher levels of reliability. The circuit reliability program also prescribes annual inspections of the company's worst-performing circuits to identify problem areas and restore the circuits to original design specification standards.

Responding to Trouble

In addition to the investments in the system, NSTAR has made organizational changes aimed at supporting its goals. The Electric Operations organization created a Maintenance and Construction function to support its infrastructure upgrade and maintenance work. The Maintenance and Construction organization is regionalized to better manage the details of the work and the schedules. This portion of the organization uses overhead and underground line employees as well as contract support for key larger projects to complete its mission of connecting new customers, maintaining the system and improving the customers' reliability metric.

NSTAR also established an Electric Service organization that teamed its dispatchers, its overhead and underground troubleshooters, and key experienced field supervisors in an organization whose primary mission is to get the lights back on as quickly as possible when outages occur. Electric Service focuses on customer restoration, not necessarily permanent system repair. Each dispatch and field supervisor is assigned a portion of the overall system CAIDI for the jobs they run and manage. NSTAR has partnered with GE Energy Rentals to provide the field crews with access to a fleet of mobile generators, which can be deployed within an hour to any part of the system to help restore customers that are out of service. NSTAR also has instilled a focus on restoring load first by employing the use of temporary jumper cables and portable pad-mounted transformers.

Key to the overall success within Electric Operations is the establishment of key shared goals. “All management personnel within the organization, regardless of department, share the goal of improving the company's JD Power Utility Customer Satisfaction Survey Rating, reducing Months Between Interruptions and improving CAIDI,” according to Phil Andreas, vice president of Electric Operations. “Numerous tools and metrics have been created for the management team to monitor its progress toward these goals throughout the year.”

Managing Outage and Keeping Customers Informed

NSTAR recognized that determining what and where the problem is can be as important to the restoration effort as what takes place in the field. It also has recognized that customer satisfaction with response to any crisis situation is largely driven by how well the utility company can keep customers informed, so that they can make good decisions for their businesses or families. Customers are more understanding if an outage is lengthy when they are told in advance about the circumstances.

In 2000, NSTAR installed a suite of Outage Management Tools built by M3i of Montreal. The tools provided call-taking functionality, automated grouping of calls based on a connectivity algorithm along with job and crew management features. These tools replaced a paper ticket system and moved outage analysis forward. However, the tool also has had its limitations for NSTAR. Because it relied solely on connectivity data for its analysis engine, the assessment of outages could be flawed and time consuming without accurate real-time connectivity information. These data are difficult and costly to maintain. NSTAR had also made significant investments in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology during the 1990s, but the value of this investment was not being fully leveraged. After a detailed look at its outage management tools, NSTAR decided the most effective way to analyze and manage outage would be to link its outage management system (OMS) with its GIS system to provide the ability to view outage call data and the electrical facility diagrams graphically.

The multiphase Graphical Analysis Tool for Outage Restoration (GATOR) project began in 2002 with the authorization, scope preparation and technical design. Early in 2003, the first phase of the project was implemented with the upgrade of the core CGI OMS software and the installation of a new hardware environment.

The second phase of the project was completed before the summer months with the implementation of a new customer-messaging tool. These customer-messaging tools eliminated the restrictive bulletin board messaging system that had been in place between the Call Center and Dispatch.

The third phase of the project, which was implemented in January 2004, activated the graphical analysis tools and provided job level messaging. The GATOR system is made up of a graphical analysis tool built on the standard ESRI GIS platform. This application is tightly integrated with NSTAR's enhanced OMS. GATOR passes and receives data from other systems, including Customer Information Systems and the new Site Reference database through Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) software that controls the flow of data. The new GATOR tool enables:

• Graphical analysis and job creation based on a call pattern and the electric facility connectivity model.

• Scalability in high volumes.

• Improved information/messaging for customers and the other constituencies, including accurate outage restoration estimates.

• Improved data and reports based on job analysis for resource management decision-making.

Project Implementation Strategy

The success of the GATOR implementation is the result of a true partnership between not only NSTAR's Electric Operations and IT organizations, but also among the vendors, ESRI and M3i (now CGI). Within NSTAR, two project managers were assigned, one on the Operations side and the other on the IT side. “A clear vision and requirements were defined: Excellent planning and project management was practiced; and the team successfully executed the plan,” said Gene Zimon, vice president of IT.

It also was recognized that the end-user community acceptance would be the ultimate measure of the project's success. A change management strategy was created that tapped all aspects of the user community throughout the design and implementation process to ensure user needs and issues were identified and resolved to the greatest extent possible. After each phase of the implementation, in-room support of the key users (the dispatchers) was provided for several weeks along with periodic follow-up training sessions.

Benefits Realized

The changes made at NSTAR have delivered results. NSTAR has been singled out by JD Power for significant improvements in customer satisfaction. In its annual survey, NSTAR has improved nine index points overall in the past two years and has ranked higher than many other peer utilities. In addition, NSTAR was the only utility in the East Region to have index numbers improve from 2002 to 2004. This result is due mainly to the improvement of customer service levels, such as reducing the number of outages, responding quickly when outages occur and keeping customers informed on what is happening and when they can expect service to be restored.

Over the past two years, NSTAR has improved its MBI measure by approximately two months, or 20%, and reduced its average interruption duration by more than 25 minutes, marking a 30% improvement. NSTAR also is now delivering concise job-level messages and restoration estimates, which it is meeting or exceeding in more than 98% of the cases. The company has moved the automated messaging capability to its automated call overflow and IVR systems, so that any customer who calls at any time will be able to receive the same information. “New goals and focus on step improvements continue to be established in the mission to reach the top quartile of utility performance,” said Werner Schweiger, senior vice president of operations.

NSTAR's mission and goals are clear to the employees: Keep the lights on, make repairs quickly if they go out, keep the customers informed, and above all, serve the customers well.

Peter Dion has worked for NSTAR Electric & Gas Co. for 17 years. Currently, he is manager of Electric Service oversight for distribution dispatch and field trouble response, responsible for system restoration. Additionally, he is in charge of equipment inspection, and corrective and preventive maintenance functions. Dion served as operations project manager for the GATOR Outage Management System upgrade project. Peter_Dion@nstaronline.com