Accurate GIS data is essential for modern utilities to ensure efficient operations and reliable grid management. The SurvalentONE GIS Wizard streamlines data integration, reduces manual effort, and enhances decision-making, as shown by its success with utilities like City of Fountain, Peninsula Light Company, and Oakville Hydro.
Empowering Utilities with Accurate and Reliable GIS Data
In today’s complex utility landscape, Geographic Information System (GIS) data plays an essential role in ensuring efficient operations, accurate decision-making, and rapid response to outages. Utilities rely on accurate, real-time spatial data to manage power distribution, deploy field crews effectively, and maintain grid reliability.
However, this data is only as valuable as its accuracy and usability.
Cleansing and maintaining GIS data can be a labor-intensive and time-consuming process for utilities, yet it is critical for ensuring reliable and accurate grid operations. To address this challenge, the SurvalentONE GIS Wizard was designed to simplify GIS data integration specifically for SurvalentONE ADMS, enabling utilities to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the data required for this platform. This empowers utilities to modernize their grid management processes with confidence, knowing their data is robust and ready for real-time operational needs.
Cleansing and maintaining GIS data can be a labor-intensive and time-consuming process for utilities, yet it is critical for ensuring reliable and accurate grid operations.
Streamlining GIS for Utility Operations
The SurvalentONE GIS Wizard simplifies the processes of data validation and integration, enabling utilities to identify issues in their GIS data and ensure accurate, up-to-date information with minimal administrative effort.
For City of Fountain, SurvalentONE GIS Wizard came as a pleasant surprise to the team because it helped them efficiently identify and address GIS data issues. David Woolley, GIS Analyst at the City of Fountain, had diligently maintained Fountain’s data over the years, making the required effort minimal. The entire cleanup totalled just 16 person-hours between the GIS Technician and him. Woolley emphasized how the GIS Wizard continues to help: “Once a month, we rerun the process to make sure our datasets are clean. At this point, it only takes fifteen minutes.”
The importance of accurate data for Fountain’s operations cannot be overstated. “Data cleanup is important because we’re trying to keep the lights on,” Woolley explained. “We’ve got crews out there at two in the morning, and if we’re providing them with inaccurate information, the work takes longer, plus it’s more expensive and difficult.”
Similarly, Peninsula Light Company has harnessed the capabilities of the SurvalentONE GIS Wizard to streamline and enhance its GIS data management processes. By leveraging the tool’s automation and validation features, the utility has been able to maintain consistent and reliable GIS data integration into its Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS). This was critical, as the utility detected more than 50,000 errors when connectivity tests were conducted from the substation to end-of-line meters prior to their data cleanup. Using the GIS Wizard ensures their operational data remains accurate and actionable, supporting better decision-making and contributing to the utility’s overall efficiency. SurvalentONE GIS Wizard continues to play a pivotal role in enabling Peninsula Light Company to meet its data accuracy and reliability goals with ease.
Oakville Hydro has also experienced significant benefits from easier, more accurate GIS data management. By integrating spatial data initiatives into their operations, the utility has been able to improve asset information and enhance decision-making across departments. “Spatial data initiatives help us gather field data to better improve our asset information and then showcase it in our mapping software,” explained Cody McMullin, Supervisor of Assets and Spatial Data. “This more accurate data allows us to produce more detailed maps. These maps, we can give to our engineering planners, we’re able to provide to our operations crew. We’re also able to provide it to our operators in the control room.”
Across these utilities, the GIS Wizard has become an essential tool for ensuring data accuracy, streamlining operations, and building a more resilient grid. By automating processes like data import and validation, utilities can focus on strategic improvements while maintaining the operational readiness needed to meet the evolving demands of grid modernization.
“Data cleanup is important because we’re trying to keep the lights on. If we’re providing crews with inaccurate information, the work takes longer, plus it’s more expensive and difficult.” – David Woolley, GIS Analyst, City of Fountain
Key Benefits of the SurvalentONE GIS Wizard
The SurvalentONE GIS Wizard offers utilities a powerful suite of features designed to enhance operational efficiency and ensure data accuracy. By automating and improving GIS data integration and management, the GIS Wizard empowers utilities to maintain reliable, up-to-date grid information, setting it apart as a valuable tool for modern utilities seeking to optimize their operations.
Robust Data Validation
Data accuracy is paramount in utility operations, where even minor inaccuracies can lead to significant operational challenges. The SurvalentONE GIS Wizard includes a suite of powerful validation tools, such as connectivity checks, topology validations, and attribute consistency checks, which automatically identify and flag potential errors, inconsistencies, or missing information before data is imported. These tools help administrators detect issues like incorrect phase assignments, invalid device connections, and duplicate or missing asset data. This ensures that errors can be corrected efficiently, resulting in clean, reliable datasets that support seamless operations and minimize disruptions.
Automated Data Exports with Scheduler
The SurvalentONE GIS Wizard includes an automation feature, Scheduler, that enables utilities to automate the export of GIS data into a format that can be manually imported into SurvalentONE ADMS. By streamlining this process, utilities can ensure that their GIS data remains accurate and up to date, reducing manual effort while maintaining consistency. The ability to schedule regular data exports helps utilities keep their network model aligned with the latest GIS updates, supporting improved situational awareness and operational efficiency, especially during emergencies.
Comprehensive Support for Advanced Applications
SurvalentONE GIS Wizard is built to support the full range of ADMS applications. The solution’s ability to import advanced network model data ensures that utilities can leverage GIS information to optimize grid performance, even in the absence of real-time field data.
Support for Esri Utility Network (UN)
The SurvalentONE GIS Wizard works seamlessly with Esri’s Utility Network (UN), enabling utilities to harness the capabilities of this advanced data model. By supporting the export and validation of complex UN datasets, including detailed connectivity and asset relationships, the GIS Wizard helps utilities prepare their GIS data for integration with SurvalentONE ADMS. This ensures that critical network model information is structured correctly, supporting applications such as Outage Management Systems (OMS) and Distribution Management Systems (DMS).
The Impact on Utilities: Efficiency and Confidence
The benefits of integrating accurate GIS data into ADMS are substantial for utilities. By ensuring the integrity of GIS data and making it easily accessible within the ADMS environment, utilities can significantly enhance operational efficiency and situational awareness. Accurate, real-time data enables control room operators to make better decisions, field crews to work more safely, and customers to receive more reliable service.
The GIS Wizard’s automation allows utilities to export GIS data on a scheduled basis, reducing the manual effort required from administrators to maintain accurate and up-to-date system information. This reliable data integration supports tools like OMS, enabling faster response times and improved communication during outages by providing real-time, GIS-informed updates to operators and customers.
A User-Friendly Solution That Stands Apart
Survalent’s customers consistently highlight how easy and intuitive SurvalentONE GIS Wizard is to use, particularly compared to more complex alternatives on the market. Designed specifically for SurvalentONE ADMS, the GIS Wizard simplifies data validation and export, helping utilities maintain accurate network models with minimal manual effort. By automating key processes and ensuring data integrity, the GIS Wizard provides a streamlined solution for utilities looking to efficiently manage their GIS data within their ADMS environment.
Take the Next Step Toward a Smarter, More Efficient Grid
Ready to unlock the full potential of your GIS data? Contact us today to learn how SurvalentONE GIS Wizard can help you streamline your operations, improve decision-making, and enhance grid reliability. Let Survalent empower your utility to meet the challenges of modern grid management with confidence.
