Solutions for Electric Utilities
ESRI Australia supplies and implements 'Best of Breed' location intelligence solutions for electric utilities encompassing ESRI Australia's professional services expertise and software from ESRI Australia (Dekho), ESRI Inc. (ArcGIS) and Telvent Miner and Miner (ArcFM).
ArcFM is a powerful purpose built extension of ESRI's ArcGIS platform. The ArcFM Solution is the most complete utility GIS suite of applications available in the industry today. From feeder integrity management to tree trimming, lightweight viewers to mobile work design, and conduit management to outage management, the ArcFM solution consists of three complete flagship products and a number of extensions to provide complete functionality in one integrated suite available from Telvent Miner and Miner.
The ArcFM solution, including Responder, is part of Telvent's Smart Grid Solution. The Smart Operating Solution, a component of the Smart Grid Suite, is based on full integration of OASyS SCADA, Responder Outage Management System (OMS), Distribution Management System (DMS), and ArcFM GIS technology, to bring added value to the intelligent network. Current utility optimisation applications run on static models or through rules-based systems. Telvent Miner and Miner's paradigm is to utilise and build on the investment in the enterprise ArcFM GIS and apply a topology model to the other solutions, OMS and DMS. As a result of the tighter integration of these systems, the complete network model can be updated more frequently and made to track very closely to the actual field electric system configuration. With the integration architecture in place, engineers, operators, and field personnel can make decisions based on the most current information available. Thus, the utility is able to do "more and more, with less and less", improving efficiency to the maximum level possible.
Decision Support
Overview
Utilities have a wealth of data - both spatial and aspatial - residing as GIS databases and other business systems. Integration of these sometimes disparate systems is key to making informed and timely decisions. Location is the common link between the assets managed by a utility and the information relating to these assets. A location intelligence solution from ESRI Australia can unlock this data and provide a powerful decision support tool available to all staff. Dekho, ESRI Australia's next generation web GIS gateway, delivers streamlined access to corporate information through an easy-to-use interface designed for deployment via the Internet or through an Intranet. Dekho offers visualisation of corporate information in conjunction with advanced GIS functionality such as electric network tracing all in a browser window.
Business Integration
Overview
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ESRI Australia recognises the strong value proposition a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) provides for building and deploying enterprise solutions. Integrating GIS with other key business systems can extend the value of those systems by increasing accuracy, efficiency, and productivity. ESRI's road map for the development of ArcGIS Server was to enable location intelligence to become pervasive throughout the enterprise. Geospatially enabling an SOA requires knowledge of not only the organisational business processes but also the robust capabilities and benefits ArcGIS Server technology offers. Some common services that support a geospatial SOA include map (2D) and globe (3D) services (transportation, demographics, physical environment, and asset maps/globes), locator services (geocoders and gazetteers), geoprocessing services (site selection models, dispersion/plume models, network analytics, raster analytics, image processing,etc.), and data management services (replication; data check-in/checkout; spatial extraction, transformation, and loading; and catalog services). Shared GIS services such as these can be used to add value to established business systems (e.g., work order, asset and customer relationship management systems) and support enterprise-wide initiatives for collaborative computing.
Outage Management
Overview
Responder is a GIS hosted, distributed Outage Management System (OMS). Responder is a complete solution built on the foundation of ArcFM and ArcGIS. This simple-to-use OMS is easily implemented and has been developed to be scalable, extensible, and sustainable. Responder focuses on providing the most valuable information to the right people for storm restoration as well as during daily operations, allowing for fully informed decisions. Its user-friendly interface and intuitive menus allow dispatchers to perform their tasks quickly and efficiently, enabling power to be restored as fast as possible and providing the information to accurately dispatch crews for maximum impact based on both geographical and tabular data.
Network Design
Overview
Network Data Maintenance and Analysis
Overview
ArcFM is a powerful extension of the ArcGIS platform that provides a complete enterprise utility solution for editing, modeling, maintenance, and management of facility information for electric, gas, and water/wastewater utilities. ArcFM takes advantage of an industry-standard architecture and programming environments, an easy-to-use interface and powerful cartographic tools, giving utilities an optimised solution for the entire organisation.
Underground Network
Overview
Find out more about Conduit Manager
Field
Overview
ESRI Australia supplies and implements a range of mobile location intelligence solutions to meet the specific requirements of any part of a utility business.
ArcFM Mobile solutions empower the mobile workforce with comprehensive functionality. ArcFM Viewer enables utility personnel to view, trace, and query data to help minimise cost or optimise the investment in maintenance and construction to get the most from the facility network. ArcFM Viewer is ideal for personnel in the field. With the Redliner extension, utility users have all of the functionality of ArcFM Viewer at their disposal along with the ability to redline, sketch, and place graphics to support initial design, inspection work, or map adjustments. Users can initiate redlining sessions using ArcFM's Session Manager in the office or in the field, and apply a combination of digital ink and graphics for markups. Sessions can be sent back to the enterprise GIS to be incorporated into the workflow for updates, while a graphics palette allows personnel to quickly and easily place graphic and standard text elements in support of sketch editing and design. With the Inspector extension, utility users have all of the functionality of ArcFM Viewer and Redliner Extension at their disposal along with the ability to update existing attributes on features as well as create, edit, and manage related records such as maintenance inspection reports.
- Viewing and querying facility information
- Network tracing
- Redline markup
- Editing features and attributes
- Creating work order designs
- Updating as-builts
- Maintenance inspections
ArcGIS Mobile is a mobile GIS platform that enables organisations to deliver GIS capabilities and data from centralised application servers, providing access to GIS services over wireless networks to a range of mobile devices. ArcGIS Mobile complements ArcGIS Server and targets enterprise customers by providing mobile-based GIS functionality including:
- Mapping
- Spatial query
- Sketching
- GPS integration
- GIS editing
- Wireless data access to ArcGIS Server Web services.
ArcPad is software for mobile GIS and field mapping applications using handheld and mobile devices. ArcPad provides field-based personnel with the ability to capture analyse and display geographic information, without the use of costly and outdated paper map books. Using ArcPad, field staff can:
- Perform reliable, accurate, and validated field data collection
- Integrate GPS, rangefinders, and digital cameras into GIS data collection
- Share enterprise data with field-workers for updating and decision making
- Improve the productivity of GIS data collection
- Improve the accuracy of the GIS database and make it more up to date
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Schematics
Overview
ArcGIS Schematics enables the generation, visualisation, and manipulation of schematic diagrams directly from data in a geodatabase. ArcGIS Schematics provides tools to operate, manage, and view any network in a wide variety of geographic and schematic representations. ArcGIS Schematics can be easily configured to fit existing company standards and realises a demonstrable return on investment in diagram generation (automatic generation vs. manual computer-aided design). It allows for the rapid checking of network connectivity, lets you quickly understand network architecture, and shortens the decision cycle by presenting synthetic and focused views of the network.