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BGE
Enbridge
PECO
Baltimore Gas & Electric Company (BGE) serves over 1 million electric and 600,000 gas customers within a 2,300 square-mile area encompassing
Baltimore and eastern Maryland. The company maintains about 6,000 miles of gas distribution pipe, including 1,300 miles of cast iron and 100 miles
of bare steel. In 1998, well ahead of industry distribution integrity initiatives, BGE decided their current risk, reliability and integrity
management business processes were below their desired standards. Their processes were reactive not proactive, and as a result, the timing of
their work and spending were too hard to predict and control. BGE decided it was time to act proactively and acquire new systems to support
system-wide distribution pipe risk assessment.
As a result of their analysis, BGE built a business case for what would become “ATLAS,” a Smallworld-based GIS. One of the key business
case drivers identified was acquiring a system that could process system-wide spatial and relational data to assess distribution network risk and
reliability.
To provide the framework for its risk-based approach to distribution integrity, BGE selected Optimain® DS, which
had been integrated with Smallworld at several utilities. Initially, Optimain DS was coupled with ATLAS to analyze their entire cast iron
and bare steel systems. In the past year, Optimain DS coverage has been increased to include the entire distribution network, including
plastic and cathodically protected steel. At BGE, Optimain DS uses risk profile factors such as gas volume/migration, service length,
population density, cover type, other ducts, building type, pipe depth, customer complaints, and their emergency network.
Optimain DS enables BGE to fully analyze their distribution infrastructure, identify risk, and develop cost-effective risk mitigation
strategies to maintain and systematically improve system integrity. BGE is now proactive in performing periodic system-wide evaluations, which
enhances development of short- and long-term plans and budgets. These business processes target spending to highest risk pipes and are applicable
to both replacement and maintenance programs. BGE presented how they use Optimain DS for system reliability and risk management at the AGA
Best Practices Benchmarking Kick-Off Conference in January 2005.
For more information about Baltimore Gas & Electric Click Here.
For more information about Optimain DS, contact Opvantek, Inc.’s Customer Solutions team at 215.968.7790 or info@opvantek.com.
Enbridge Gas Distribution Company (EGD) is the the third largest gas distribution utility in North America, providing natural gas to about 2
million customers across Ontario, Canada. In 2002, EGD along with Accenture, Inc. developed a plan that included technology information
collaboration. Enbridge selected Optimain ACM and the STORMS work management system to replace 29 legacy systems as part of their
“EnVision” business process and information technology transformation project. The overall solution package is being hosted by Accenture
, Inc. and
referred to as WAMS (Work and Asset Management System).
On October 25, 2004, EGD went live with its fully integrated WAMS. EGD’s Optimain ACM consists of both a relational and GIS-integrated
Asset/Event Register Model, which enables Enbridge to manage all physical network assets in a single solution, and is capable of handling all of
a company’s network maintenance and compliance requirements.
On any given day at EGD as many as 250 concurrent external and internal personnel are using Optimain ACM to access over 3 million assets
and over 15 million historical and planned asset events. Optimain ACM generates and manages all of EGD’s compliance work, including
Leak and Corrosion Surveys, Leaks, Regulation Stations, Valves, etc.
EGD has also extended view-only access to Optimain ACM to all its locater contractors. The product uses an innovative
Treeview to display asset relationships upstream and downstream, which is even used by EGD customer service representatives to better understand
the network infrastructure. At EGD, Optimain ACM used the Optimain Web Services module to send compliance and planned asset
maintenance work back and forth to a work management system. The product is also integrated with the Smallworld GIS.
It is fully integrated with Worksuite’s STORMS Work Management Solution in a work driven concept. Work completed in the field automatically
creates new assets in Optimain ACM or updates existing assets with inspection and condition information. Optimain ACM’s
powerful Program Manager drives all inspection, survey and other compliance- and program-driven maintenance work orders to STORMS to be scheduled
by the appropriate crews on a time-
sensitive basis.
EGD can now manage all assets in a single integrated solution and visualize and manage asset relationships with unprecedented ease via the
Optimain ACM
Treeview. They can also easily create maintenance programs and monitor their effectiveness. EGD is still in the process of optimizing capital and
O&M cost, but has already improved safety, reliability and network integrity.
For more information about Accenture, Click Here.
For more information about Enbridge Gas Distribution, Click Here.
For more information about Optimain DS, contact Opvantek, Inc.’s Customer Solutions team at 215.968.7790 or info@opvantek.com.
In 2008, Opvantek worked hand-in-hand with PECO Energy, one of the earliest Optimain DS customers, to dramatically improve the value,
accessibility, and visibility of Optimain DS risk evaluations. PECO's Gas Division had been investing in desktop geospatial technology and
data for several years. They exported gas main segment locations from their Stoner Software™ Gas Planning System and aligned them with a
commercial landbase (using MapInfo). They had also geocoded a large percentage of their customer premise records against the same landbase.
In early 2008, PECO approached Opvantek to explore the possibility of using the geospatial data (a series of ArcGIS Shape files) to improve the
fidelity and effectiveness of their existing Optimain DS system. Opvantek offered to license and configure the Optimain ArcGIS9® interface
to provide a visualization of risk assessment results on PECO's geospatial data. In addition we offered to use our geocoding and facility
finder engine to generate geographic locations for PECO's existing leak and pipe inspection records, on the best matching main pipe segments.
We also proposed to develop and deliver a new GIS Placement Tool, allowing PECO staff to use the same geocoding and facility finder engine
for ongoing placement of leaks and pipe inspection records.
Opvantek began work on the system upgrade in September 2008 and delivered the following results in just four (4) months:
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Geocoded over 67,000 historical main leak and pipe inspection records and associated them with the best matching gas main
segment. Over 89% of main leak records were successfully associated with a matching main pipe and placed in an ESRI geodatabase. |
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Integrated the geocoded customer premise locations and related service pipe attributes
into the Optimain risk and economic assessment based on spatial proximity to the gas main segments. |
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Overlaid Optimain DS risk evaluation projects on PECO’s commercial landbase (TeleAtlas®
StreetMap), enabling nearby high risk buildings to be automatically incorporated into the risk evaluation. |
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Delivered the new Optimain DS Google Interface, allowing users to export an Optimain Project and
the underlying GIS facilities and display them in Google Earth. This provides an efficient way for planning engineers to make an initial
assessment of their facilities in Google Earth, with satellite imagery and StreetView high resolution photographs, in order to understand the current risk and potential replacement challenges surrounding a candidate project without actually driving to the site. The Optimain DS Google Interface also provides single-click launch of Google Maps in a web browser from any record in Optimain that has a valid street address. |
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Developed and delivered the new Optimain GIS Placement Tool, based on ESRI’s ArcEngine Runtime
Library. This tool enables data entry staff to efficiently place new leak and pipe inspection records onto the correct gas facility,
through a simple, intuitive, point-and-click interface. The tool automatically generates candidate street addresses for the object to
be placed, geocodes the addresses to generate candidate locations, and then searches the GIS for nearby facilities that match the
attributes of the leak repair or pipe inspection. Each candidate facility is given a relative score indicating the confidence that it
is the correct facility for the record that is being placed. Users can then place the record with a single click on the best matching
facility, either in a tree view on the GIS Placement Tool or directly on the GIS map. |
Through the judicious use of desktop mapping technology, existing data sources, available staff time, and the Optimain ArcGIS Interface,
PECO has developed and deployed a system providing many of the benefits of an enterprise GIS at a fraction of the costs. Some of the benefits
they are already achieving include:
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Improved grouping of historical leak repair and pipe inspection records onto the affected pipe, providing
more accurate and complete system-wide risk assessment to aid in replacement planning and other risk mitigation activities |
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Enhanced system improvement project planning through visualization of clusters of high risk pipes in the
same area, achieving economies of scale for replacement or rehabilitation projects. |
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Reduction in on-site visits and improved budgetary estimates during early planning and scoping by providing
a geospatial view of a candidate project with the surrounding facilities and a single click to display in Google Earth. |
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Continued investment in reusable GIS data and technology, positioning the gas department to migrate onto a
corporate GIS platform. |
PECO continues to invest in their GIS and Optimain DS systems and plans additional enhancements in 2010.
For more information about Optimain DS, contact Opvantek, Inc.’s Customer Solutions team at 215.968.7790 or info@opvantek.com.
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