OMS Trends: Then and Now

Transmission & Distribution World May 2001

By Chuck Newton, Automation Editor

Automation Perspectives last featured a discussion on computer-based outage management and trouble call systems in early 1996. Of real concern for the industry was and still is the issue of managing unplanned outages, such as those caused by storms, other acts of nature and major equipment failures. In the intervening five years, there has been a proliferation of new product announcements relating to the provision of outage management systems (OMS) and packages from several provider types.

The available varieties of OMS range from trouble call and/or outage “modules” available from supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and distribution management systems (DMS) suppliers, the geographical information system (GIS) community, and customer information system (CIS) package providers, to firms specializing in building links between operational control-center-based resources and enterprise-computing applications. Still others not only build the linkages, but also provide work and asset management and crew scheduling software packages, incorporating outage management modules to one or more types of public services. There is also great variety in the depth and breadth of individual modules, packages and approaches to OMS. For some utilities, a modular approach to OMS is a workable solution. For other utilities, especially the Top 100 or so, a complete DMS, integrating an OMS capability, may be a better solution.

When we take a look back at what else has changed over the past five years, it is interesting to note that many utilities have continued to discuss the need for trouble call and outage management. However, they have not been successful in implementing their OMS plans because of any number of factors, from budget limitations, to lack of human resources, to a continuing concern with deregulation in their states, to other utility and information technology (IT) priorities.

Industry marketing studies continue to report that outage management (as well as other distribution network management systems) will continue to grow in importance as power-delivery-system reliability becomes a competitive factor, and as reliability-performance measures become an increased interest of public utility commissions. These findings have been reported in North American and international electric-power-industry studies of electric-power SCADA, DMS and distribution automation.

One of the overriding concerns of utility IT management today is phased developments of large IT projects, whether they are on the “enterprise” side of the business or on the operational side.

What this often means is that only one or two major IT projects are worked on concurrently in any company. In addition, utility IT staffs have not grown measurably since 1996 and budgets remain tight, at least in the public sector utilities.

One of the issues facing potential new users of outage management software is that of the “stand-alone” versus the “integrated” nature of the application. Unlike many other utility applications, outage management is totally reliant on external linkages to consumer information systems, SCADSA/DMS systems and service dispatching-crew scheduling operations. The need for OMS suppliers to combine elements of the real-time SCADA system with transaction-oriented and event-driven information systems is critical. The need for OMS to be geographically driven is yet another consideration. There are still hundreds of utilities in North America, and hundreds more worldwide, without any significant GIS available. Substantial progress has been made in many of the Top 100 utilities of the country and another Top 100 around the world, whether these are investor-owned, publicly operated or cooperatively owned. It is the middle tier and smaller electric power-delivery utility that struggles to staff and fund programs that will enable computer-based outage management.

The more people in the industry with whom one discusses these related issues, the more one realizes the OMS area is a lot like the topic of substation integration and automation activities – a need exists for strong interdepartmental coordination, buy-in and agreement. No single business unit is totally responsible for outage management. A coordinating, interdepartmental project team seems to be the best way to undertake these “enterprise-type” programs and projects. If anything, OMS cuts across even more areas of the utility than substation integration does. The great majority of managers interviewed in one recent study stated that interdepartmental project teams proved to be a help and not a hindrance in technology projects such as OMS planning and development.

The Internet is also quite likely to be playing a role in OMS activities. Nearly one-third of North American utilities today indicate some use of the Internet or corporate intranet to provide outage updates, which is a higher Internet usage rate than for any other of the distribution-related applications listed.