Kli, april 14th, 1997

Giselle at NESA

Per Klitgaard Andersen, Manager, Corp. Information Systems

Internet: kli@nesa.dk

In 1996 NESA, which is Denmarks largest distributor of electricity, started its operations with Giselle. Giselle is a GIS-system, delivered by InformiGIS, the Danish Esri distributor, in consortium with Miner&Miner, Co., and Esri, Ca.

The early story of GIS at NESA

In 1989 a consultancy study at NESA showed that considerable rationalisation could be obtained, if the manual drawing routines for our distribution lines and cables were automized by using GIS-technology. In 1990 it was decided to implement a GIS-system, GIGA, on our mainframe. The long term objective of this technology choice was to secure integration between our GIS-data and customer-data. However, the mainframeproject progressed very slowly, and had to be abandoned in 1993. The final blow came, as it turned out that the future succes of the project would be linked to substantial and unrealistic mainframe-investments.

Thus we had to start all over again, and as part of an necessary image improvement, the project was re-christened Giselle. Giselle is a ballet heroine, who expresses grace and trust in her dance but was deceived in her first love, and now seduces young men by dancing them into their death!

Choice of vendor

By regulation, European utilities are required to opt for open EU-tenders when purchasing larger software systems. NESA´s Giselle-tender was answered by 14 vendors, 4 were pre-selected, and in late June 1995 a contract was given to the InformiGIS consortium mentioned in the introduction.

All the pre-selected vendors offered standard-solutions, which with some modifications could be integrated in our system-architecture. The main factors for our choice were:

-The consortiums good perception of our requirements,

-Esri´s strong position in the GIS-market

-A guarantee, that as an Esri-customer we would not be left in misery.

It was furthermore our impression, that Esri wanted to expand its presence on the European utility-market, thus seeking a showcase, to which NESA lent its name with confidence.

To this picture shall be added, that the other pre-selected vendors turned out to be somewhat less balanced, as our requirements was intensively discussed during the negotiations.

Giselle implementation

NESA´s contract with InformiGIS specified Digital hardware, Esri-basissoftware, Miner&Miner-applicationsoftware plus delivery and support-services from InformiGIS. The contract included anorganization draft, where the development staff from all four companies was integrated with an American project manager from Miner&Miner. Of course the contract also included an activity-schedule with specified deliveries.

The development- and implementation work started mid-August 1995 with planned full delivery May 1996. In June there were only a few outstanding deliveries, we went operational with the data-conversion, and celebrated the inauguration of the system with a highly publicized picnic-party.

Then the real problems started! The number of software bugs grow at an alarming rate, and the planned procedures for bug-correction turned out to be inoperable. The response time was horrible, and in spite of a mutual perception of an severely underpowered hardware-configuration the project organization showed up to be indecisive about what to do.

In September 1996 the management of NESA had to intervene. At meetings in Redlands the project procedures was streamlined and both hardware and software configuration was improved. Delivery success criteria was formalized, and everybody was committed to work for end-December as final date of approval.

Then in november a new problem of imminent success turned up! Even if our core-team in charge of data-conversion was ready, the operations organization, which should draw benefit from the converted data, was not prepared. It looked like GIS´ long gestation from 1989 had left the end-users with the impression, that Giselle forever was to be an future work-tool. As consequence, a reorganization of NESA´s Giselle-team, which also prepared implementation of further GIS-projects, was done.

All essential deliveries were made just before Christmas, and due to some minor formalities, NESA accepted the total contract delivery mid-January.

Experiences to be learned, and opportunities to be taken

Like most European utilities, NESA still operates under monopoly conditions, but a Danish market liberalization, due to EU-legislation, is on its way. This influences our corporate culture: In the ideal world, projects should neither be delayed, nor exceed costs. In the real world, our success criteria requires, that expenditure budgets are kept, until the vendor has made a total delivery. In a more competitive world, minor and controlled overrun on cost-budgets might be preferrable, if project deliveries are made faster.

Of course, this builds on mutual confidence between buyer and vendor. As this confidence now has been documented by a success-story NESA has made substantial investments in hardware and manpower to speed-up the data conversion. However, it is our experience, that the preparation of the end user organization for the GIS-technology requires greater attention in future.

The Giselle system at present is basically a system for data conversion. But it is clear for everybody, that great competitive benefits can be obtained if the converted data are integrated fast in other operational procedures. The GIS-technology facilitates a major redesign of our business processes, based on integration between administrative, technical and geographical data. With Giselle, our IT-department has got a strong basis for internal marketing of additional GIS-systems, and NESA has already approved two new projects. And more GIS-systems will come.

The collaboration between NESA and Miner&Miner has shown tremendous benefits in improving our IT-competancy level. This is not only a question of technology transfer; the collaboration between different cultures clearly influences the way of thinking and working, and improves the competancy-chain, which is essential for us to prosper in a competitive world.

At last, a few hard facts

The Giselle system is based on ArcInfo and ARCSTORM and the MM application tool-box with ORACLE as databasesoftware. It is implemented on Digital Alpha hardware. NESA´s present configuration includes 5 database servers, and 29 work-stations. The installation is geographically dispersed at 5 destinations interlinked with optical-fiber high-speed networks. It is planned, that data can be accessed from ca. 400 PC´s using ARCVIEW.

Author Information:

Author Name: Per Klitgaard Andersen
Title: Manager, Corp Information System
Address: Standvejen 102
Zipcode: DK-2900
City: Hellerup
Telephone +45 39 48 15 80
Telefax: +45 39 58 10 15
E-mail: kli@nesa.dk
Web: http://www.nesa.dk