Executive Summary
A large utility provider had a significant challenge reducing damages across their footprint. Their diverse assets span hundreds of miles, resulting in hundreds of thousands of one call tickets annually. Historically, this made it extremely difficult to predict which tickets have the highest risk for damage. Their implementation of UtiliSphere™, a platform for critical infrastructure asset management and protection, reduced damages by 29% in the first year.
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A large utility company needed a solution to reduce operational costs, while protecting assets, ensuring public safety and improving field productivity.
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They implemented Irth Solutions’ Damage Risk Analysis, an offering of their Risk Management solution.
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They realized a reduction in worked tickets, operational savings, and less damages the first year and extended the software to additional use cases.
Problem
The large utility company has a robust field workforce responsible for managing a diverse set of assets in an urban environment, resulting in about 500,000 damage prevention tickets per year. Their existing processes required the coordination of hundreds of employees via paper, phone, email and in-person meetings. This process created many challenges, including:
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Identifying and analyzing common risk factors tied to facilities, such as asset integrity, locate area and problem excavators
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Prioritizing resources to the most critical excavation sites
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Incorporating historical damage data
Solution
The utility company implemented Damage Risk Analysis to identify one call tickets and their potential for damages based on artificial intelligence, machine learning and historical damage data. Risk scores need to be real-time for accuracy and safety. UtiliSphere is the only platform in the market that brings all risk scoring data together in one place:
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Immediate risk scoring to provide real-time identification for swift action on high-risk tickets
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Automated actions based off high-, medium- and low-risk provide a three-tiered approach to damage prevention
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Agile scoring allows users to add and configure new elements, alter scores and weights, and alert the right people
Results
Moving to Irth Solutions’ Damage Risk Analysis helped to reduce damages by 29% in its first year, resulting in approximate savings of over $400,000. The success of UtiliSphere prompted the utility company to extend the software to manage operator qualifications, locate audits and damages.
"UtiliSphere… uses artificial intelligence, machine learning and historical data to tell a deeper story about the asset rather than just seeing a snapshot of the data.”
About the Utility Company
The company is one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the United States, with approximately $12 billion in annual revenues and over $48 billion in assets. The company provides a wide range of energy-related products and services to its customers.