Cognizant Case Study
Large Utility Gets On Track with Smart
Asset Management
When a major North American utility began tracking its smart assets
through their lifecycle, it was able to minimize costs, prevent failures,
improve its warranty claims process and enhance the customer
experience.
Business Situation
For utilities, it’s become essential to track and
manage their investments in Internet-enabled
smart utilities assets, as well as the network infrastructure that links consumers to the power grid.
Doing so can enable utilities to optimize their
cost of operations and enhance the customer
experience. These smart assets help utilities
improve their operational efficiency, deliver
reliable service and reduce energy costs to end
customers.
The third-largest electric utility in the U.S., a
Fortune 200 company with more than $17 billion
in revenue and $74.9 billion in assets under
management, wanted to optimize its business
processes and asset tracking capabilities to
improve the visibility and status of its smart
assets. Doing so would enable the utility — which
serves approximately 4.7 million customers with
total installed capacity of 41,000-plus megawatts
from natural gas, thermal, nuclear and wind
turbine — to minimize inventory costs, prevent
theft, effectively process warranty claims and
more accurately plan spending. All of these capabilities needed to be embedded throughout the
cognizant case study | july 2015
smart asset lifecycle, from receipt to deployment,
ongoing operations and billing, through maintenance and the eventual retirement of the devices.
Challenges
The utility’s lack of efficient and effective
processes and technologies led to increased
costs due to manual asset tracking, inaccurate
inventory management and the failure to file
claims before equipment warranties expired.
The existing system supported more than 4.5
million smart assets, with continuous tracking and
monitoring of attributes such as wireless radio
status, firmware version and remote disconnect
switches. In addition to sensors such as customer
electric meters and monitors throughout the distribution network, the utility wanted to monitor
the radios in the access points that serve as data
collectors and transmitters, as well as relays in
rural areas that are used to amplify the signals
before they are transmitted to access points.
Solution
In this business consulting engagement, we drew
on our utilities and asset management industry
knowledge to define and develop new smart
asset management business processes, as well
as evaluate industry-leading solutions to support
those processes.
We began by preparing blueprints of the utility’s
existing processes for managing smart assets
throughout their lifecycle, and identified gaps
between those processes and industry best
practices. We then designed the desired process
flows based on industry-standard enterprise asset
management (EAM) frameworks. We evaluated
industry-leading EAM products, such as IBM
Maximo and SAP EAM, before recommending a
new smart asset tracking solution for the utility.
As part of the event-based
condition monitoring of
smart assets, we developed a
configurable dynamic business
rule engine to flag suspicious
smart asset events.
This solution includes core modules, such as
asset management, inventory management, work
management, condition monitoring and calibration management. It also includes an administration module that is configurable and scalable to
meet the utility’s evolving business needs.
Among other steps to increase efficiency, we
optimized user interfaces to minimize the number
of screens required to navigate work processes.
We developed a data architecture that integrates
data to provide a 360-degree view of smart assets,
including the head-end system that gathers data
from the sensors and transmits it to the systems
that manage customer information, network
operations and outage restorations. The smart
asset management system was also integrated
with a cloud-based system for managing the specialized workforce responsible for managing smart
assets.
cognizant case study
As part of the event-based condition monitoring
of smart assets, we developed a configurable
dynamic business rule engine to flag suspicious
smart asset events. We also developed a
dedicated document management system that
helps business users meet regulatory documentation requirements.
Easy-to-use Microsoft Business Intelligence
(MSBI) dashboards allow senior management
to monitor key performance indicators related
to the business units responsible for managing
these assets. We also designed and developed a
mobile app that enables field workers to track the
movement of smart meters and network devices
in the field. This solution, deployed in all parts of
the utility’s far-flung operational areas, allows
users to determine the location of smart assets
at any point in the supply chain.
Benefits and Results
Because of the improved processes and
technology, the following capabilities and benefits
are now possible:
• The utility can process seven times as many
warranty claims without any added staff,
reducing repair and operational costs.
• The
utility can also proactively identify
impending failures, thanks to the improved
analysis of the state of its smart assets. This
results in prevention of failures, reduced costs
and fewer service interruptions.
• Failing sensors are returned to the manufacturer during their warranty period, reducing the
cost of repair or replacement.
• The
utility can ensure that the right smart
assets are in the right locations when needed,
reducing costly downtime while staff waits for
or searches for meters or other sensors.
The workflows and asset management software
we produced to help the utility manage its smart
assets are now being extended for use across
other parts of the company, such as distribution, load management and network operations,
as well as in the deployment of smart lights to
consumers.
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About Cognizant Energy and Utilities
E&U is one of Cognizant’s fastest growing industry verticals, serving a broad spectrum of industry
niches across the E&U value chain. We are a global practice with presence in all the leading geographies,
delivering cutting-edge solutions ranging from customer experience management and the smart grid
to enterprise asset management. The E&U practice consists of domain and subject matter experts who
have helped deliver award-winning solutions and have helped our esteemed customers successfully
manage regulatory compliance, complex transformations, product implementations and technology
rationalization, among others. For more information, visit us at www.cognizant.com/energy-utility.
About Cognizant
Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business
process outsourcing services, dedicated to helping the world’s leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant combines a passion for client satisfaction, technology innovation, deep industry and business process expertise, and a global, collaborative
workforce that embodies the future of work. With over 100 development and delivery centers worldwide
and approximately 217,700 employees as of March 31, 2015, Cognizant is a member of the NASDAQ-100,
the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 2000, and the Fortune 500 and is ranked among the top performing and
fastest growing companies in the world. Visit us online at www.cognizant.com or follow us on Twitter: Cognizant.
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