Energy Biz - July/August 2008 - (Page 40) L eAdership roundtAbL es OUR REAL-TIME GROUP HAS BRIDGES WITH A LOT OF THE BACK OFFICE. take service from us. The ethanol plants are the biggest ones that need dual feed, and they push that pretty hard. At this point, the one that we serve is just on a radial, but we have capability, or we’ve built into it two 10-megavolt ampere transformers that can switch back and forth. So it’s not really a dual feed for transmission. It’s a dual feed for the distribution. I’d like to see us have some more smart switches out there that have automated transfer, especially around some of our bigger cities. ENERGYBIZ One of the issues that has become prominent in the industry is the division of information between real-time and back-office systems. You have real time in operations and engineering departments. Then you have information technology and the back office and those have been called silos. Are those silos breaking down at your utility? Ortega The short answer’s yes. There’s more communication, but there’s still an opportunity to improve that. I think our real-time group has bridges with a lot of the back office. They work with the ops people plus the IT people who give the line-up for support, which they all do, frankly. So I think the short answer is yes. Varn A couple of states that we serve are regulated, and information sharing is somewhat restricted. We have some rules that we have to follow, certain compliance rules. In general, though, within the rest of the organization, I don’t see any limitation on information that’s shared — none whatsoever. r auber In the past, just the nature of the groups, the realtime and operations information haven’t necessarily come together with the back-office side. But as this new technology comes along, it’s defi nitely bringing about a comingtogether. That’s not really a breakdown of silos, it’s just that the two groups need each other to each accomplish what they need to get done and they come together to do so. At least that’s what we’re fi nding. It’s been new, and it takes a little getting used to, getting to know some different people, that sort of thing. But I think it’s both sides seeing what has to be done if you’re going to be customer focused. If each side sees how it works for better customer service, then they chip in. chackO I think so. Back in 2002, we created a data warehouse, and that kind of helped us in breaking down some of these IT silos. We have our geographic information systems leveraged into this common database repository. We have a work-management system that’s tied into the warehouse. Depending on what I need, I can call the person in charge of the data warehouse and ask for a report, and I will have gobs of information coming out. We have that on the gas and electric side. That’s one of the ways we have been able to get around the silo mentality. 40 e n e rgyb i z July/August 2008
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