Future-Proofing Utilities with Digital Mobility Solutions CONTENTS
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Future-Proofing Utilities with Digital Mobility Solutions CONTENTS Overview 03 Challenges and Issues 03 The Solution, Best Practices, and Benefits 05 About Cyient 08 2 Overview The global utility industry is currently undergoing an “energy transition” given the increased focus on climate change mitigation. While governments and regulators have introduced policy-level changes and stricter regulations, the utility ecosystem is undergoing a systemic transformation across the board, ranging from energy sources to the way end users consume power. That said, developments such as smart grids and heightened regulations compliance mandates are placing immense pressure on existing assets to deliver more. Additionally, there is a high price for inaccurate reporting in the form of financial penalties and uptake in the use of real-time information for data-driven decision- making. This has led to the emergence of data as a critical enabler for the sector and brought to the fore the importance of asset data management as well as the field workforce involved in the process. While the evolution within the utility landscape poses a fresh set of challenges for companies, it also presents a business opportunity—a spur in enterprise-wide adoption of technology and digitalization. According to a World Economic Forum study, “digital transformation” has the potential to unlock $1.3 trillion of value for the utility sector by 2025. However, given the dynamics of the industry and the fluidity of the situation, the key to unlocking this value lies in the ability of utility companies to: • Operate and adapt an aging infrastructure in a dynamic environment • Manage asset data for operational and regulatory purposes • Involve the workforce in the digital transformation journey Challenges and Issues: Stringent regulatory environment Due to its essential and critical nature, utilities While revenues and business decisions depend is a highly regulated sector across the globe. directly on the reporting, non-compliance can Companies need to collect and report data attract hefty fines and can be detrimental to throughout the life cycle of an asset. From the future of the utility operator. This is further planning to designing, and installation to complicated by the dynamic and ever-evolving de-commissioning, utility companies are landscape, which is becoming increasingly mandated to report on several parameters. data-dependent. 3 Reliance on the field workforce handwritten notes are then collated, scanned, and manually fed into the enterprise system for In the utility industry, approximately 70% of the analysis and reporting. Besides being labor- workforce is deployed in the field. In addition to intensive and time-consuming, this method performing repairs and maintenance on remote severely undermines the integrity of the data assets, field engineers and technicians also due to errors of omission, commission, and play a crucial role in gathering data which forms misinterpretation that human involvement can the basis for regulatory reporting, revenue be prone to. generation, and taking business decisions. According to a Boston Consulting Group study, Overengineered or single-use tools field workers constitute up to 40% of a utility company’s wage bill and represent up to 80% In instances where companies deploy tools of capital expenditure on field equipment and for data collection, they are often designed replacement. And yet, they seem to have been by IT professionals for IT professionals with entirely left out of the digitalization revolution, little understanding of what the field engineers which is critical for long-term sustenance of the need. This results in overengineered tools business. that are hard to use for the field force who may not be familiar with or trained for using Legacy data collection systems such systems. Another aspect of current IT tools used in the industry is the number of Surprising as it may sound, a large number of single-use tools deployed by companies on an utility companies still use paper-based systems ad-hoc basis to meet regulatory or business for data collection. Readings and data points requirements. An outcome of these complex from assets are recorded on paper; these and large number of tools is underutilization or in some cases, non-use of such tools. 4 The Solution, Best Practices, and Benefits Field force first As mentioned earlier, poor application design can lead to user apathy and poor uptake among the field force. This makes it critical for utilities to invest time and effort in taking a “field-force-first” approach. It is important for system designers to spend time with the field force to understand their systems and processes, areas of concern, work conditions, and business requirements in order to design an effective solution. Doing this increases the proclivity of users to adopt the tool which will result in improved quality of data collection, thus making the system more effective and productive. Make data collection fast, effective, and accurate Given the criticality of data collection, an ideal solution should look at making the process fast, effective, and accurate. Collecting and cleaning data from paper-based systems can consume an inordinately large amount of time; and integrating it into the enterprise system can take up to a few months. In the fast and dynamic environment we operate in, this information could very well be dated and unfit for use. Additionally, it is equally important to understand what data needs to be collected and to design the system accordingly. Very often, utilities suffer from self-inflicted data inundation, which can add to the workload of the field force without having any business or compliance value. 5 Future-proofing the system To keep up with the changing regulatory and business requirements, it is vital to deploy a solution that is open and remains flexible to adapt to the changing needs throughout its life cycle. Designing a modular system that offers configurable solutions can help users customize the process based on proprietary templates and data points required. It removes the need for single-use tools that add complexity to the process and increase the operational expense required for system integration and data consolidation. Thus, it not only makes the system future-proof, but also reduces the total cost of ownership in the long run. Data consolidation With a sharp increase in the volume of data that needs to be collected and processed, it is essential to deploy a solution that consolidates the data and provides decision-makers with a unified view of all the information. A centralized GIS optimizes asset management, improves compliance and customer service while reducing operational cost and outage response time. It also automates the quality assurance (QA) process, reducing manual effort and increasing efficiency. Data conflation This feature supports utilities in maintaining data accuracy to minimize redundancy and data conflicts, which helps in efficient planning and designing of their operations. This enhances data accuracy for process synchronization and helps reduce data conflicts. The consequent efficiency in the process which results in direct savings in the form of reduced labor consumption and related costs. 6 Data migration With data collected from several sources, an effective solution offers data migration processes which help reduce inefficiencies associated with having data stored in multiple systems. Additionally, data is often recorded in varying formats and media. Hence it is critical to deploy a data migration methodology which ensures that unstructured data coming from various sources undergoes multiple processes resulting in accurate, clean, and updated data. From an operational and reporting perspective, this improves data quality and productivity of utility business processes. Data maintenance Accurate data is a critical asset for utilities. It is crucial for informed decision-making, improved asset network analysis, outage management, cost savings, and productivity gains. An effective solution provides better awareness of outage restoration progress and estimated restoration time, leading to improved customer satisfaction. Partnering with a provider who understands the industry is key To be successful and unlock business value technology (OT), enable us to develop through digitalization, utilities must place the engineering-centric and business-critical field workforce at the center of their asset solutions. data management process. This can only be achieved by adopting an engineering mindset With over two decades of experience and to understand and address the pain points deep expertise in the utility sector, we have experienced by the utility industry. partnered with leading global utilities, including five of the top 10 companies, to deliver At Cyient, we have been designing and measurable results and business value. We deploying engineering applications and work closely with operational teams to design solutions since 1991. We understand how applications and solutions that streamline utility field workers think and behave, which, business processes and align data collection combined with our extensive capabilities in processes with business and regulatory information technology (IT) and operational requirements. 7 About Cyient Contact Us Cyient (Estd: 1991, NSE: CYIENT) is a global North America Headquarters engineering and technology solutions Cyient, Inc. company. As a Design, Build, and Maintain 99 East River Drive partner for