Sarah Lee, David Schirmer
Abstract
The Geographic Information and Analysis Systems (GIAS)
group at Southern California Edison (SCE) is a study of paradoxes.
Amid the vast complexity of a large electric utility's information
technology department, the GIAS group operates much like an autonomous
consulting firm. Unlike any other group within IT, the GIAS unit
receives no direct financial support from its parent organization,
but rather, must depend on client chargebacks to remain viable.
Full departmental and corporate recognition of the group are still
to be achieved, yet grass-roots and middle management support
have always been strong.
The survival (and success) of the group is largely
attributable to recognition by the wider SCE community of the
tremendous advantage and benefit GIS products and services provide
in meeting their business needs. This recognition has led to a
subsequent willingness to fund not only their own GIS endeavors,
but also to contribute to the building of corporate GIS infrastructure.
Such an environment encompasses and facilitates the notions of
data and hardware sharing, universal application development,
and a mindset of involvement and ownership by the users. To coordinate
and encourage this effort, detailed procedures and methodologies
have been established that include a marketing strategy, project
work flow, personnel acquisition and development, hardware and
software acquisition, and issues related to pricing, funding,
and budgeting.
This paper will describe in detail the methodologies
and procedures developed by GIAS that have enabled the group to
thrive and grow even within an environment lacking direct financial
support, and without 'enterprise-wide' acceptance.
History
SCE has been generating and delivering electric power
to within its 50,000 square mile service territory for over 100
years. As part of this effort, SCE has developed a strong environmental
research program. During the 1970's Edison contracted scientists
from the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum Foundation
to study fish populations near the San Onofre Nuclear Generating
Station. Based on this relationship, when Edison found it needed
technical support for GIS products and services they again turned
to the Museum. By 1983, GIS requirements had grown to such an
extent that the first GIS coordinator was hired through the Museum.
At this time, the bulk of the work was concentrated on environmental
projects related to sensitive species and habitat analysis.
After an internal move from SCE's Environmental Department
to its Engineering Department in 1990, today's GIAS manager, Joanne
Wilborn took over management of the group and served as the Edison
liaison between the contracted GIAS group and the wider SCE community.
Shortly thereafter, the group moved from a PRIME computing environment
to an ArcInfo/SUN based system, began recruiting in earnest for
GIS professionals to support the growing corporate need for GIS,
and moved to the Information Technologies Department.
In 1993 the group moved from a traditional subsidized
budget structure to a 100 percent chargeback system. In this new
environment, Edison departments were required to provide funding
to GIAS for projects requested by the client organizations, including
all hardware and software costs. As a result, GIAS had to focus
on internal marketing and spreading the word about its capabilities,
as well as develop a mechanism that would ensure coverage of all
costs related to the operation of a GIS organization.
Goals/Vision/Philosophies/Standards
SCE's GIAS group does not provide traditional Automated
Mapping / Facilities Management (AM/FM) development and support,
such as outage management, nor electrical infrastructure control.
Instead, GIAS' focus is on higher-end spatial analysis and GIS
application development, with such projects as a wireless communication
network management, load forecasting related to the impact of
electric vehicles, habitat analysis, marketing, and multi-point
crew dispatching.
Several departmental GIS groups have developed to
support outage management and facility inventory mapping; these
represent a more traditional SCADA/AM/FM approach. These departments
also support a variety of other internal GIS needs. While at their
inception the groups did not consider or realize the benefits
of data sharing, recent project requirements have necessitated
the exchange and availability of GIS data among the various departments.
The mission of the GIAS group is to provide technical
services on a corporate level in support of spatial modeling,
data integration and analysis, and decision information system
design. As such, GIAS work products emphasize application development,
customized programming, and data systems integration. With this
said, the group does provide a substantial number of traditional
GIS outputs including, maps, reports, etc., to the wider Edison
community. GIAS strives to build reusable tools, applications,
scripts, and functionality that can be applied to multiple projects
to reduce costs and implementation time. As a result, map products,
applications, and other outputs are produced in standardized formats
that are familiar to Edison GIS users.
In the era of right-sizing and doing more with less,
it is GIAS' goal to enable clients to work more effectively and
focus on their core business by boosting efficiency and reducing
costs. In coping with this new business climate, the GIAS group
sees a huge potential for desktop-based GIS products like ArcView,
MapObjects and, especially, the suite of new Internet products.
Indeed, desktop-based application development represents the bulk
of GIAS's new project work, and this trend is expected to accelerate.
One of the most serious roadblocks for enterprise-wide
GIS development at Edison has been the lack of senior management
buy-in. This has resulted in the haphazard development of a variety
departmental GIS groups, the duplication of resources, and difficulties
arising out of vaguely defined areas of responsibility. A number
of consultants have attempted over the years to generate support
for an enterprise GIS solution, but without much success. However,
in light of large staff reductions due to a recent voluntary early
retirement program, and pending competition as a result of utility
deregulation, all levels of management are beginning to realize
that GIS can be a powerful tool in boosting efficiency and reducing
costs. It is hoped that this combination of circumstances will
allow for an enterprise GIS solution to be realized at Edison
in the near future.
Staffing
Currently, GIAS is staffed by eleven GIS analysts.
All analysts are required to have Bachelor's degrees in Geography,
GIS, or a related field. Several of the analysts have also obtained
Master's degrees in GIS. Daily project management is conducted
by two Site Coordinators. Larger corporate issues including marketing
and strategic planning, and the contract with the Museum are coordinated
by the Edison manager, Joanne Wilborn. The group is also supported
by a part-time system administrator and two administrative aides.
Additional work is provided by interns from local universities
on an as-needed basis.
It is GIAS' practice to hire entry-level GIS analysts out of universities and train them on the job.
Analysts have room to grow and advance through a
four-tiered analyst system in accordance with their performance.
Entry-level analysts start out by supporting the more senior analysts
and performing the basic tasks required for GIS projects. Because
GIAS' data creation is primarily focused on address-matching as
opposed to traditional digitizing, the entry-level analysts begin
with tasks that include coverage generation, database creation,
and rudimentary mapping. As the analysts gain experience, they
progress to more complicated mapping projects that include AML
and Avenue programming, complex data integration, and interaction
with clients. Senior level analysts are responsible for our largest
and most technically complex projects. They manage all aspects
of the projects and interact closely with the Site Coordinators
and the Edison Manager to direct the development of the GIAS group.
The Site Coordinators direct the daily operations
of the group ranging from marketing, project design, and high-level
client interaction, to hardware acquisition and personnel. New
projects filter through them and are distributed to the group
based on workload, skills, and experience. The Site Coordinators
oversee the work through the entire work cycle providing technical
direction, budget status, and quality assurance/quality control
measures.
The Edison manager acts as the contract manager and
liaison to the wider Edison community. Chief responsibilities
are the removal of roadblocks that may inhibit the pace or progress
of a project, strategic planning, as well as actively marketing
the capabilities of the group to the rest of the company.
Hardware
The GIAS lab is equipped with a variety of UNIX workstations
including both SUN and IBM, as well as Pentium PCs for desktop
processing. Currently, GIAS supports 26 SUN UNIX workstations.
Half of these machines are owned by clients who have purchased
these hardware resources for specific project needs. The other
half of the machines have been purchased by GIAS and its parent
department in support of general GIS activities.
In 1996 the main data server was upgraded to an Enterprise3000
with 20 gigabytes of internal disk space, 512 megabytes of memory
and a Creator Graphics card. Also included in this upgrade were
two Ultra2s model 2200 each with 320 megabytes of memory. During
the second quarter of 1997, all aging Sparc2's and IPXs were also
upgraded to Ultra2s model 2200. Additionally, GIAS pursued the
acquisition of another Enterprise 3000, with the primary purpose
of supporting X-Window sessions from remote machines. Rounding
out the SUN hardware inventory are four Sparc20s and four Sparc10s.
A corporate IBM RISC server that is shared with our clients maintains 75 gigabytes of data and is the access point for our desktop users. In total, GIAS supports over 250 gigabytes of data.
These machines communicate on a closed network through
a switched Ethernet hub operating at 100 megabit per second.
The second quarter of 1997 also saw the change-out
of GIAS desktop machines. All Macintoshes and older 486s were
upgraded to a standard configuration Pentium 166 MHz with 32 megabytes
of memory. Two of these machines were further upgraded to have
128 megabytes of memory, and equipped with Windows NT 4.0 primarily
for web development, but they also being utilized to evaluate
the NT version of ArcInfo.
Software
GIAS is primarily an Esri-based operation with 24 ArcInfo and 26 ArcView licenses maintained on the SUN and IBM platforms. All told, Edison maintains approximately 60 copies of the Windows version of ArcView.
Other supported software includes:
Data Resources
Internally, the various departmental GIS groups focus
on data and applications of interest to their home departments.
Data are shared among the departments and provide the source for
many of our corporate data layers. The Real Properties Land Mapping
group is responsible for managing the land associated with corporate
resources. As such, they create many GIS data layers including
transmission line schematics, corporate map grids, and timber
production inventories. Additionally, this group manages the Thomas
Bros. Maps (TBM) digital landbase contract, and is responsible
for the distribution of the data to corporate users. This group
supports both MapInfo and Esri products.
The Outage Management System group maintains circuit
drawing files in AutoCad format linked to a Sybase database of
attribute and other electrical outage information. The overall
system is managed by M3I software. The circuit data are directly
converted from drawing files into shapefiles via PC ArcView's
CADReader extension by the GIAS group for distribution to the
rest of Edison. The Sybase database also contains coordinate locations
of all of Edison's electrical equipment locations.
The Transmission/Substation group uses MapInfo to
create and maintain schematics for transmission lines, fiber optic
lines, and the department's regional boundaries throughout the
service territory. There are also single users throughout the
company using products like Atlas GIS and MapInfo to support the
needs of their individual departments.
GIAS takes advantage of all the spatial data developed
by the groups above, as well as, the valuable data resources provided
by a variety of commercial vendors. The corporation has adopted
the TBM digital landbase as its primary street layer. TBM also
provides other core layers including zip codes, city boundaries,
county boundaries, water features, cultural features, and the
map guide page index. The TBM database has highly accurate street
centerlines (+/- 12 feet) in the urban areas as well as address-range
information that supports detailed address matching. In the outlying
areas, TBM has supplemented their database with enhanced Topologically
Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) data. Each
semi-annual update represents an enhancement of both graphical
features as well as attribute data.
GIAS also purchases data from national data vendors
including Equifax, Geographic Data Technology (GDT), and Space
Imaging.
GIS groups in Southern California are fortunate in
that there are many agencies who make their GIS data available
at little or no cost. The Southern California Association of Governments
(SCAG) produces a land use database for six counties in the Los
Angeles area. This database uses a modified Anderson-type Land
Use Classification of approximately 100 categories. The data are
generally mapped in 2.5-acre units. The Teale Data Center is the
state repository for GIS data and is particularly useful as a
resource for state-agency data, including political and administrative
boundaries, physical geography, and cultural geography on a state-wide
level.
Marketing
Given that Edison has yet to adopt an enterprise-wide
GIS mindset, a significant marketing effort is required to make
the corporation aware of the group's services. Much of the marketing
effort consists of educating potential users about GIS from basic
definitions, to demonstrating its ability to solve complex business
problems. One of the most effective tools for marketing has been
the GIAS media kit. The media kit includes a list of available
datasets, an article written about the group in an internal magazine,
quarterly newsletters, and Esri's ArcNews. Potential users can
examine GIS applications highlighted in ArcNews and witness how
similar business problems are being solved through the adoption
of GIS.
One key marketing mechanism underway includes the
GIAS homepage on the Edison intranet. This application provides
digital samples of past work, staff biographies, and products
and services available. Soon, users will be able to request new
work, order re-prints of past work, and subscribe to GIAS's cartographic
data library, among other services. Perhaps most exciting is the
addition of the ArcView Internet Map Server extension. From their
desktops, users can browse and query a variety of cartographic
datasets throughout the service territory using only Netscape,
or similar browser.
Other marketing strategies include the development
a full-color brochure for both internal and external distribution
describing our services and displaying our products. GIAS also
attends and makes presentations at various local conferences including
CGIA, Esri, and local universities to maintain an involvement
in the wider GIS community.
Users
GIAS users are distributed throughout the company
in all of Edison's business units, the largest GIS users, however,
reside in the Electrical Distribution and Transmission departments.
Regional Policy and Affairs, Information Technologies, and other
shared service departments make up the next tier of users. Generation
and Marketing represent the last tier.
This breakdown has changed significantly over time.
In the beginning GIAS' clients were primarily from the Environmental
group (Regional Policy and Affairs Department). As the word has
spread about the group's services, and the utility of GIS in solving
business problems, other departments have surpassed the Environmental
Department in work volume. Further changes in the balance of clients
and the type of work requested is expected, as Edison is still
in the throes of industry restructuring.
Projects
The twelve-person GIAS group completes well over
100 projects per year. These projects range from ongoing multi-year
efforts to one-time requests that require just a few hours of
work. Some of the larger efforts are described below.
Automated Geocode Validation System (AGVS)
- The goal of AGVS is to address match all of the customer meters
within the Edison service territory in order to validate their
Geographic Area Code (Geocode). A Geocode is determined by the
city, county, customer-service district, and climate zone in which
a meter is located. Geocodes are used to determine a customer's
baseline allocation, utility user taxes, and Edison's franchise
tax payment. To validate Geocodes, the GIAS group receives meter
information from the Customer Information System. This information
is then address matched against the TBM street network. A geographic
location for each meter is determined and the other corresponding
digital data sets (e.g. city, county, and climate zone) are used
to determine the correct Geocode for each meter. The validated
Geocodes and the latitude/longitude coordinates are returned to
the Customer Information System.
Network Communications (NetComm)
- NetComm is Edison's wireless communication network. Using packet-radio
technology operating in the 900 MHz range, the ultimate network
will be made up of over 30,000 radios connected to more than 90,000
end devices. The network is designed to support a variety of Edison
infrastructure applications, including switch automation, capacitor
control, and remote meter reading to name a few. Very early on
in the project, it was determined that to successfully plan, implement,
operate, maintain, and monitor this radio network, specialized
tools would be required. Development of the NetComm End User GIS
Application (NEUGA) then began. NEUGA is an ArcPlot-based query
and display application that has become an indispensable tool
within the project. In addition to the mundane GIS aspects of
the project, including mapping and simple facilities inventory,
NEUGA is employed daily to answer complex and wide-ranging ad
hoc spatial analysis queries posed by a disparate group of
planners, engineers, managers, and field crews. Network planners
employ line-of-sight analysis, network-density analysis, and shortest-path
analysis. Network operations engineers utilize NEUGA for visualizing
packet tracing, cul-de-sac analysis, RF-load density, and a variety
of other spatial analysis tasks.
Electric Vehicle Predictive Analysis
- As regulatory agencies seek to improve air quality through legislation
requiring zero-emission vehicles, Edison is aggressively preparing
for the eventuality of increased numbers of electric vehicles
(EVs). Introduction and widespread use of EVs throughout Edison's
service territory could potentially produce significant impacts
on the electrical distribution infrastructure. Edison is currently
developing methods and technologies that will enable the ability
to anticipate and proactively design the distribution infrastructure
to support the expected introduction of EVs within the service
territory. Chief among the tools being developed is a geographic
information system (GIS) that allows for the incorporation of
a comprehensive EV-purchase-behavior model, electric-load forecasting
methodology, and an EV-charging site optimization model. Data
yielded from these models may then be further integrated with
electric-utility infrastructure data and other cartographic databases
to create a powerful locational-decision-support system that will
enable infrastructure planners to set sound and defensible policy
with respect to generation planning, distribution engineering
and planning, as well as small-area planning. (Schirmer, et al.
1996)
Conclusion
The management and operation of a GIS group is a
constant struggle. Given the atypical, and often daunting environment
in which the GIAS group operates, the success and accomplishments
of the group are that much more remarkable. GIAS's success is
directly attributable to the "can-do" attitude that
is embraced by every member of the group, each with the talent
and resolve to find novel and creative solutions to complex spatial
problems. Credit is also due to the clients who have shown initiative
to shoulder their own, often complex, GIS efforts, and willingness
to contribute to the development and maintenance of the larger,
corporate GIS effort. With the ever-increasing visibility of GIS
and the requirement of GIS tools for effective business solutions,
it is anticipated that an enterprise GIS environment will take
hold at Edison. At which time, many of the hurdles that have been
describe above, chief among these being enterprise-wide buy-in,
will be removed.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the following
people without whose contributions this paper would not have been
possible:
Joanne Wilborn
Dr. Robert Lavenberg
Jeanine Cavalli
Julie Crescione
Ryan Damon
Mary Fitzpatrik
Daniel McAlister
Kevan Newton
James Rodriguez
Brenda Rounds
Joshua Schechter
Helga Schwarz
Dora Wang
Carl E. Meador III
References
Schirmer, David (1996) On the Integration of GIS
within an Electric Vehicle Program for Predictive
Analysis. Paper presented at the 1996 Esri Users Conference. May
1996. Palm Springs, California.
Author Information
Sarah Lee VanWagner
Site Coordinator
Southern California Edison
GIAS lab, GO3, room 228
2131 Walnut Grove Ave.
Rosemead, CA 91770
leesp@sce.com
David Schirmer
Site Coordinator
Southern California Edison
GIAS lab, GO3, room 228
2131 Walnut Grove Ave.
Rosemead, CA 91770
schirmde@sce.com