SERVICE RESTORATION TECHNOLOGY - THE IMPACT ON CUSTOMER SERVICE AND OPERATIONS

摘要

Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) is the nation's oldest gas utility and one of the earliest electric utilities. BGE provides service to more than 1.1 million electric customers and approximately 600,000 natural gas customers in Central Maryland. BGE is a member of Constellation Energy (NYSE: CEG), a Fortune 500 integrated energy company based in Baltimore. Constellation Energy is the nation's leading competitive supplier of electricity to large commercial and industrial customers. BGE's Service Restoration activities were supported for nearly 20 years by a computerized Electric Trouble Operating System (ETOS), which was responsible for analyzing customer calls, inferring outage locations, and assisting with crew dispatch to restore service. The new Outage Management System (OMS) went live in June 2003. Over the past year, the new Mobile Dispatch System (MDS) has been rolled out to three business units: Outdoor Lighting, Gas Service, and Electric Trouble. The OMS Project Team and the MDS Project Team were separate teams comprised of both functional and technical employees and staff augmentation contractors. The members of the project teams were solely focused on their respective projects and did not attempt to perform additional line roles as well. Each project team had a steering committee to help set the strategic direction. Some overlap between members of the project teams and steering committees helped ensure consistency. This paper focuses on the Electric Trouble implementation and describes in detail the techniques used for successful integration and implementation of the OMS and MDS systems, service restoration workflow requirements, preparing the workforce for change, increased value for our customers, and restoration performance success.