5 key strategies for utilities navigating the digital transformation

MISO control room (Courtesy: MISO)

Contributed by Robert D. Sturtz, former Director of Distribution Region Operations, AEP Ohio

The advancement of digital technology is creating an exciting time for innovation in operations management within the electric transmission and distribution industry. This digital transformation is an evolutionary process. In fact, we’ve been digital innovators for decades. For many in the industry, the next phase of transformation is about consolidating the digital ecosystem and making the right data available to the right people at the right moment. This is more important than ever given that utilities are currently faced with multiple headwinds ranging from increased size and frequency of weather events, supply chain disruptions, and workforce shortages, all while attending to routine work, system expansion, and grid hardening.

As our industry accelerates into the energy transition at full speed while responding to the effects of climate change, real-time access to consolidated information in the field can boost efficiency, reliability, and safety. Read on for the 5 key strategies to consider as your team navigates digital transformation, helping utilities to get the lights back on faster after the storm and increase cash flow with better capital execution.

#1 Measure success to ensure technology ROI

Digital technology can play a significant role in helping utilities accomplish the important work of safe, reliable, and affordable energy. However, the wide variety of digital solutions available today creates a risk of adopting new tech just because it is alluring without stopping to gauge whether it will add measurable value to the organization or merely add to the information sprawl.

This next phase of digital growth must emphasize measurable value, linking your choices of technology with the real business drivers that matter to our industry. These include a laser focus on safety and the System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) as well as how much technology reduces operating costs and improves your capital execution. Measuring the return on technology investments also includes the increased business agility it gives your team, such as increasing capital project throughput while better equipping utilities to respond and restore following outages. If you can’t measure it, don’t buy or build it.

#2 Avoid DIY and systems integration

Over the years, utilities have amassed large volumes of data inside disconnected systems that range from work and outage management to geographic information systems, enterprise resource planning, customer information systems, advanced distribution management, and many more. Pervasively, teams want to manage each and every moving part of a complex digital machine internally, providing the temptation to build do-it-yourself (DIY) solutions to solve their app overload and data silo dilemma. Yet attempting to bring business data together in meaningful ways to drive blue sky and emergency operations puts utilities in the software and systems integration business. However, the more we internalize any type of work that isn’t a core utility competency, the less efficient we are.

When competing internal and external pressures reach the tipping point, teams who understand the risks of DIY utility workforce solutions tend to reach first for systems integration (SI) consultants. Yet SI projects cost millions and take years to complete, in which time business targets have moved, lessening the relevance of the information and making it difficult to measure success. With increasing information sprawl and an imperative to do more with fewer resources than we’ve ever had, many transmission and distribution teams are ready to exit from the status quo to meet the escalating demands of the power grid, reliability, and revenue goals.

#3 Forge strong technology partnerships

Understanding the limitations of both DIY and SI, a third road to be taken when exiting from the status quo is to partner with technology providers of mobile workforce management solutions. Asking for help is difficult for utilities, but by bringing in outside experts to support workforce management, teams can leverage software purpose-built for what they do. That enables teams to focus 100% on their core missions of transmitting and distributing power.

Ultimately, by surrendering direct ownership of information technology development to a trusted partner with deep roots in utilities, power transmission, and distribution teams can do what they are really good at – reliable, safe, and efficient energy.

#4 Leverage integrations to bridge utility data silos

There are two important keys to transitioning to one app, from using many different types of software to manage, report, and restore in the field. First, you need smart technology that doesn’t attempt to rip and replace a utility’s digital ecosystem with something monolithic and cumbersome, not to mention vastly expensive. Your existing investments in information technology can be harnessed through application programming interfaces (API) that allow one system to pull and push data from systems of record to the cloud.

Not only can mobile workforce management technology rapidly integrate data silos, it allows utilities to extract more ROI from information technology investments. Data can then be seamlessly blended and contextualized depending on the task at hand, whether that’s energizing a new subdivision, repairing damage to a pole after a vehicle accident, or performing damage assessments following a storm. The more systems that mobile workforce management technology can integrate the more situational awareness utilities gain, which can measurably improve safety, reliability, and revenue while automating manual tasks and capturing system, crew, and operational KPIs.

#5 Lead digital transformation from the field

Equally important to success is leading from the field, not the C-suite, by bringing those who will be using the new and potentially disruptive technologies directly into the digital transformation process. This entails engaging directly with the line department, both full-time employees and contractors, to get their buy-in to change instead of armchair quarterbacking a technology decision from the top down. User acceptance is just part of the goal – when field workers see how much easier a single mobile app makes their life, it has a ripple effect in terms of improved job satisfaction and productivity. This is starkly different to an SI where organizational change management is the tool of choice that often alienates instead of empowering.

While digital transformation lives or dies in the field, its strategic management requires executive oversight, a multi-year vision, and funding, but never micromanagement. When done well, digital workforce transformation yields measurable dividends in terms of SAIDI, safety, and cost efficiencies that allow utilities to accelerate business performance, no matter the scale of storm response and the energy needs of the communities we serve.

About the Author

Robert D. Sturtz

With nearly 30 years’ experience in the electric power utility industry and having been at the forefront of the consolidation phase of digital transformation at one of the country’s largest investor-owned utilities, Robert Sturtz is an expert in bridging the technology needs of the field with executive support. Mr. Sturtz dedicated the bulk of his career to American Electric Power (AEP) where he served as Director of Distribution Region Operations for AEP Ohio.

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