Sempra Energy Increases Field Worker Efficiency and Work Productivity

Project Summary

Project Type:

Implemented its geo-enablement platform solution to the electric and gas field workers.

Location:
Southern California, United States

Number of Customers:
2.5 Million +

Applications:

Allow field workers to search, identify, measure, and redline sketches through an intuitive user interface.

Solutions Implemented:
EpochField

Customer Benefits:

Ability to run on multiple device platforms such as Windows and iOS

Ability to work offline while beyond internet connectivity

Integration with Sempra’s current Work Management System

Introduction

As the largest natural gas utility in the United States, Sempra Energy needed a software solution that would provide up-to-date data to its fieldworkers across the company’s service territory in Southern California. Along with their electric service territory and with approximately 2100 fieldworkers in the Los Angeles and San Diego metro areas, the company required a solution that would save fieldworkers time while helping them effectively manage and maintain gas and electric service to Sempra’s 25 million customers in the region.

The Challenge

Sempra, the parent company of SoCal Gas and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), required a simple yet powerful digital mapping solution. Furthermore, the solution needed to provide daily updated maps and lead to improvements in accuracy and efficiency for fieldworkers as they completed their day-to-day tasks. Some of the specific requirements included:

  1. Ability to run on multiple device platforms such as Windows and iOS
  2. The ability to work offline while beyond internet connectivity
  3. Integration with Sempra’s current Work Management System

The Solution

Epoch Solution Group has implemented its geo-enablement platform solution EpochField, to the electric and gas field workers across Sempra’s service territory. EpochField is a map-centric, Esri-based application that provides a suite of tools which help Sempra’s fieldworkers complete their daily tasks quickly and effectively. The application allows field workers to search, identify, measure, and redline sketch through an intuitive user interface.

One of EpochField’s advantages is its map-first approach – users can zoom, pan, and identify objects on the map as naturally as they would any map application on their phone or tablet devices. EpochField also provides the foundation for workflows in the field such as asset inspection, and gas leak survey. Through integrations with the enterprise work management system, work orders can be delivered seamlessly to the field.

The Results

In 2017, San Diego Gas & Electric completed its rollout of EpochField for electric field workers, and has seen vast improvements in efficiency and work productivity. The simplicity of EpochField’s user interface allowed SDG&E field workers to adopt the new platform quickly and with minimal training. For 2018, the remaining gas users are being deployed. Both Epoch Solutions Group and Sempra look forward to the continued expansion of EpochField into their workflow, and the future implementation of our EpochField Gas Leak Survey.

Integrating Smallworld Data into an Esri Environment At Puget Sound Energy

Project Summary

Project Type:

Data Conversion

Locations: 

Western United States

Number of Customers: 

1.1 Million +

Applications:

To convert Smallworld Data into
an Esri environment

Solutions Implemented:

EpochSync

Customer Benefits

Converting legacy data

Enhanced geospatial data

Use of Esri products

The Challenge

Puget Sound Energy, a gas and electric utility company serving 1.1 million customers in the Pacific Northwest, has continued to supply their customers with natural gas and electricity since 1997. With their customers continuing to grow, PSE needed to have a better way to visualize their geospatial data across the enterprise. Esri was chosen for its web and portal technology and being able to disseminate the geospatial asset data. In order to complete this, PSE needed a way to efficiently extract the data from their legacy Smallworld system.

The Solution

Users throughout the PSE Organization can now access GIS Data any time they are connected to the web on the PSE Network. In the future, PSE may decide to expand this to public-facing servers that would allow access to users using any device connected to the internet.

Epoch Solutions Group recommended the use of EpochSync, an application to seamlessly migrate Smallworld data into an Esri enterprise geodatabase hosted in SQL Server. This involved an initial full synchronization of the data and, afterwards, ongoing periodic synchronization of incremental changes from Smallworld. Once this data was available on the Esri Server, the web architecture was leveraged to provide applications to end users that allowed them to log in through a single portal and access several different geographic datasets, whether or not that data originated in Smallworld.

PSE also had a need for several custom tools to be provided to their users, including an electric and gas distribution network tracing tool and a web markup tool allowing users to submit change requests to the electric distribution data administrators. Epoch Solutions Group built these tools into applications.

The Results

Users throughout the PSE organization can now access GIS data any time they are connected to the web on the PSE Network. In the future, PSE may decide to expand this to public-facing servers that would allow access to users using any device connected to the internet.