Like all public utilities, PA Consulting Group’s client, a major energy provider in Southern California, is required by law to comply with Federal Department of Transportation and State Commission mandated regulations to regularly inspect all distribution assets and record all inspection-related data and history.
The client had many disparate systems specifically designed for maintenance and inspection compliance work (M&I). In the majority of cases the supporting applications had been in place for many years and were built on dated technology. Through a combination of multiple assets, the complexity of the large territory and a recent merger, the M&I activity consumed significant field resources, as well as clerical and management time. Although effective in meeting requirements, and relatively low cost to maintain, the applications and processes were manually intensive, generating paper work orders, which then had to be scheduled and issued to the field. It was estimated that in excess of 10 systems could be consolidated down to one, and that clerical input could be reduced by 50 percent.
Recognizing the limitations of its current systems, the client sought to engage an external provider with direct experience of energy, and a proven independent approach to designing and implementing work management and field automation solutions. PA was selected to support the program of work to fully evaluate the M&I applications and business processes.
PA was invited to help achieve the client’s vision, from the development of business requirements through to solution design, by defining a solution that: automated the scheduling process, provided mobile data terminals for field workers, eliminated duplicate data entry and delivered greater accuracy and integrity of data. PA's work has articulated a clear, pragmatic solution that enables this utility to move from its legacy environment to a single automated work management and field automation solution.
