For Giant Electric Utility, Spectacular Teamwork Pays Off
PSE&G Merges Customer Data, Outage Management, and GIS
New Jersey's Public Service Electric & Gas Company (PSE&G) selected Esri and Esri Business Partner Miner & Miner Consulting Engineers, 
Inc., of Fort Collins, Colorado, to provide an ArcFM 8-based GIS. Miner & Miner was also selected to integrate that system with PSE&G's new Outage Management System (OMS) and their proprietary Customer Information System (CIS). This integrated system will allow PSE&G to respond to outages proactively and efficiently. The GIS system can als
o be leveraged to provide additional external and internal efficiencies.
Formed in 1903 through the amalgamation of more than 500 New Jersey gas, electric, and transportation companies, PSE&G is the fourth largest electric and gas utility in the United States. The company has headquarters in Newark and serves much of the State, delivering natural gas to 1.6 million and electricity to 1.9 million customers.
The company has consistently taken advantage of advances in technology to provide both reliable service and operating efficiency. In 1992, PSE&G implemented an integrated work management system (IWMS) for all of its electric and gas divisions, and in 1999 began to implement SAP R/3 software that makes it possible to integrate the utility's operations (work orders, maintenance, projects, etc.) with its Business management (staff, inventory, facilities, etc.). To facilitate maintenance, PSE&G also implemented an ArcSDE database, making it possible to display and edit its utility network online.
Objectives and Requirements
To improve customer service, in addition to implementing the SAP software mentioned above, PSE&G began to implement Pragma Line OMS, made by M3i Systems, Inc., of Quebec, Canada, in 1999. The new software will allow PSE&G to detect outages without being notified by the customer, provide accurate information about the outage to the customer, and reduce operating costs among other things.
The Circuit Chooser tool is used to display the conductor, ULS, and devices associated with a specified circuit.
However, to function as intended, the OMS requires a link between itself, the customer account information in PSE&G's CIS, and the geographic feature and network connectivity data in the GIS.
Project Status
PSE&G's hardware, software, and data requirements have been analyzed, the system has been designed, and implementation planning has been completed.
The Error Handler is used for visiting, correcting, and managing errors detected by the custom Circuit Tracer utility.
To create the link between the three systems and to complete the rest of the implementation, PSE&G is relying on Esri (prime on the contract), Miner & Miner (software programming subcontractors), Esri Business Partner Analytical Surveys Inc. (ASI) (data conversion), and itself as follows:
- Data Conversion—Thousands of paper records and all of the existing digital data must be converted to a format compatible with the integrated system. PSE&G had already started to convert much of the data needed into a format compatible with the SAP R/3 software while envisioning that those same records would support an integrated system. Therefore, PSE&G is continuing with the conversion to SAP format as planned and Esri will convert the relevant records, through ASI, to ArcFM 8 format.
The data produced from PSE&G's in-house conversion will be combined with ArcFM 7.2.1 data converted by ASI. Esri will then convert the combined data set to ArcFM 8 format and perform quality assurance checks before returning it to PSE&G for final acceptance.
The data conversion process was tested by using a prototype of the software against a "pilot area" of converted ArcFM 8 data. - Development of Custom Software—ArcFM 8 software (an ArcInfo 8 extension product produced by Miner & Miner) provides some of the functionality for the integrated system. However, new interfaces needed to be developed to allow the three systems to "talk" to each other. Miner & Miner (working closely with associates from PSE&G and M3i) is taking the responsibility for these interfaces along with some new macros, forms, and menus. Miner & Miner is also responsible for some changes to the electric object model, ArcFM, and ArcMap.
- Software Installation—Esri-Boston assisted with the initial software installation.
System Design
The ability to create a link between the three systems is a spectacular example of teamwork between all the vendors, PSE&G associates, and the PSE&G subcontractors.
For more information, contact Matt Bottenberg, project manager, Esri (tel.: 909-793-2853, ext. 1-1570; e-mail: mbottenberg@esri.com).
