Electric Overhead and Underground Inspection 

Customer

The leading Gas and Electricity provider for 24.2 million customers in Southern CA. It is the largest utility Company in the US, and more than 6 million customers live within 20 miles of the coast.

Problems to be Solved

Utility companies allocate a significant portion of annual budgets for preventive inspections and follow-up work. These include taking preventative measures, proactive monitoring, and maintaining electric assets to minimize disruption caused by natural calamities and aging. The negligence results in power outages and loss of customer satisfaction leading to billions of fines by regulatory authorities.

The CPUC’s post-incident report determined that the incident’s root cause was higher salt and moisture content in the air, which accelerated the corrosion and rusting of riser gas pipes. Risers connect the main gas service point from the street to the home street, and they have a 10% higher chance of failing when they are near the coast, resulting in gas leaks and fire. in power outages and loss of customer satisfaction leading to billions of fines by regulatory authorities.

The CPUC has mandated that 6 million homes within 20 miles of the coast be inspected for gas leaks and potential fire hazards, allocating millions to cover the inspection/repair expenses over ten years.

Regulatory compliance needs the deployment of contracting company staff with limited skills in the area of riser inspection. The higher attrition rate of contractors significantly reduces the quality of inspections and remediation. The limited funds and compressed timeline to complete the checks require planning/scheduling tools. Additionally, a highly user-friendly and workflow-driven mobile app to improve data capture quality and minimize follow-up action needs to minimize non-compliance audits.

The CPUC in their post-incident report determined the root cause to be higher salt & moisture content in the air which was accelerating the corrosion and rusting of Riser gas pipes. A riser connects the main gas service point from the street to the home street and has a 10% higher chance of failing when near the coast, resulting in gas leaks and fire.

The CPUC has issued a mandate that 6 million homes located within 20 miles of the coast must be inspected for gas leaks and potential fire hazards, and allocating $300 million to cover the expenses over a span of 10 years.

The regulatory compliance needs deployment of contracting company staff with a limited skills in the area riser inspection and also higher attrition rate of contracting staff significantly reduces quality of inspections and remediation, the contracting staff on-boarding is also one of the key challenges without impacting corporate computer network security guidelines. The funds and timeline to complete inspections requires planning, scheduling, need to be well orchestrated, and data capture quality and follow up action need to be workflow driven to minimize non compliance audit.

Solution

  • Establish a standardized process for managing Electrical & Gas asset inspection
  • Develop and implement an integrated application that will be intuitive for all users
  • Create greater transparency between company employees and contractors to Improve productivity and regulatory compliance
  • Ensured Data Accuracy and Completeness
  • The cloud-based Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) solution suite enables maintenance plan-based inspection cycles that meet regulatory requirements.
  • Supports inspection of overhead and underground electrical assets and Gas distribution assets
  • The application suite integrates with ERP (ex SAP) EAM to provide a comprehensive end-to-end solution spanning asset accounting, compliance management, and CPUC reporting.
  • Create and process any type of work request, whether corrective, preventive, condition-based, or predictive
  • Sync notification and order data with other modules on the ERP (ex SAP) Intelligent Asset Management Suite
  • Get a 360º view of asset status, maintenance costs, and breakdown causes from any device.
  • Use labor, material, equipment, and schedules to plan activities that lower costs.
  • Access, transfer, complete, and manage assigned work orders for planned or emergency maintenance.

Business Outcomes

  • Reduced unplanned outages by 50%
  • Early Detection of defects increases reliability by 99.5% and reduces losses due to downtime by 70%.
  • Adherence to PUC Compliance and Social responsibility
  • Digital Asset Maintenance eliminates the manual, error-prone process of evaluating asset health.

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