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Customer Profiles: Florida Electrical Utility

A major electrical utility uses Datria to respond more effectively to weather-related power outages.

After Hurricane Irene stormed ashore in 1999, a major power utility in Florida commissioned Arthur D. Little to study how the company could respond more effectively to weather-related outages. Among the major recommendations: deploy a voice-enabled system that technicians can use during the recovery effort. A voice-based system can promote better communication and faster data flows. That, in turn, leads to greater efficiencies and, ultimately, faster recoveries.

The need for voice communications comes from two factors: 1) how the electrical grid is structured; 2) how power companies lend employees to each other during an emergency.

Electrical Grids

Most electrical grids use multiple levels of protected devices. A home is connected to a power box with multiple fuses. Ten to a hundred homes might be connected to a transformer with its own level of protection. Multiple transformers are connected to a lateral switch with another layer of protection. Multiple lateral switches are connected to a feeder.

Generally, power companies don’t have sensors below the feeder level. They depend on phone calls to alert them to power outages. Not every phone call relates to a different location, however. If a transformer disconnects, for instance, it may generate numerous phone calls but only one location to visit. In September 2001, for instance, Hurricane Gabrielle generated 15,000 phone calls to the Florida utility which translated to 4,000 actual locations to visit.

Major Outages

Some weather events are so massive that the local utility assumes that all power is out. They organize crews to react across the entire service area; the crews’ first responsibility is to scout the service area and identify damage. They then relay the information to a central facility which builds an inventory of the needed repair work. Once the inventory is established, planners can assign priorities and begin dispatching work.

Voice-enabled systems can dramatically improve communications and productivity during a major outage. During the scouting process, for instance, it’s simpler and faster to call in a damage assessment than it is to report the same information via a laptop or hand-held computer.

Voice is especially helpful when crews are walking (or slowly driving) a line. They can speak into a voice system continuously, something that’s impossible to do a laptop. Datria’s scouting system uses voice recognition technologies to accept the report, convert the voice to data, and update the work request database. Datria also allows technicians to create trouble tickets directly from the field -- the fastest way to get problems into the queue for scheduling and resolution.

Voice is also helpful in dispatching work. In major outages, utilities outside the service area lend work crews to help restore power. These crews certainly understand how to repair T&D infrastructure but they typically don’t know how to use the receiving company’s dispatch and scheduling system.

Prior to implementing Datria, the Florida utility handed out paper tickets in the morning and collected them in the evening. They had very little visibility into the work conducted during the day and could not respond quickly to changing situations. With Datria, the company asks on-loan employees to bring mobile phones and gives each worker about half an hour of “tailgate training” on Datria. The training focuses on how to receive a trouble ticket, how to report work completed, and how to close out a ticket.

The company can typically dispatch workers on their first call within an hour. The technicians call Datria to report their status. The Datria application uses a synthetic voice to ask questions about the work completed. Technicians simply answer the questions in natural language. Datria automatically logs the information in the system. Datria then reads the system, selects the next ticket for the crew, and reads the information to them. It’s fast, simple, and natural.

The Florida utility used Datria for the first time after Hurricane Gabrielle. The day before the storm, the company had a normal contingent of approximately 150 technicians in the area hit by the storm. The day after the storm, 2,000 technicians were working the same area – most of them on-loan from other companies. As one of the company’s supervisors noted, “They didn’t know the intricacies of our reporting system. We didn’t have time to teach them. Datria simplified the whole problem; they just had to talk and listen.”

Scattered Outages

The Florida utility also uses Datria to help respond to scattered outages. In some ways, scattered outages can cause more headaches for local utilities than massive storms. It’s difficult to keep track of what’s been repaired and what’s not. It’s also difficult to tell if a phone call reporting an outage is actually a new outage or one that’s already being repaired. The reason is the way electrical grids are typically structured and monitored.

The company supervisor explains the problem succinctly: “You really have two databases – one in the computer and the other in the technician’s back pocket. You don’t know which one is up to date. Meanwhile you’re still getting more phone calls. Let’s say Mrs. Smith calls to report an outage. We know that she’s on a given lateral and we know that lateral is being fixed. So we assume that her power will return once the lateral is up. If that’s not the case, we have to wait for Mrs. Smith to call us a second time to tell us the power still isn’t back on.”

The old system could lead to delays and poor customer service. It could also lead to duplicate effort – the same job might be scheduled twice. With Datria, the technician calls in immediately to report completed work. Instead of two databases, there’s one and it’s always up to date. When a phone call comes in, the company can immediately tell what’s been repaired and what hasn’t. They can schedule work more effectively and give customers more accurate, more up-to-date information. As a result, the company can actually reduce its costs while also improving customer service – a rare combination.

Business Benefits

With real-time information flowing to and from emergency crews, the Florida utility can:

• Create a comprehensive damage inventory more quickly
• Schedule repair work more effectively
• Organize on-loan technicians more quickly
• Reduce duplicate efforts (scheduling the same job twice)
• Communicate with customers more effectively
• Set customer expectations more accurately
• Restore power more quickly