Aligning corrosion processes and procedures.

This session was originally presented at IQGeo's 2021 virtual meetup. The session is headlined by guest speaker Lance Elroy, Manager of EDO Systems, Compliance, and Emergency Preparedness at MDU. In this short video, Lance shares how IQGeo products, tools, and features are used at MDU and the value it brings to his business. Lance Elroy, Director of Operations Systems and Process Improvement for MDU Utilities Group. We're going to have a tag team presentation today and we'll let everybody introduce themselves as we go. Just jump right into it. So just an overview of what we're going to present. We'll tell you about our digital transformation or One Vision, One Utility initiative. The focus of this is going to be inspection and survey around our corrosion application that we partnered with IQGeo. We're going to walk through an overview from Dustin, who's our corrosion manager, and then transition into a demo and some technical discussion around the IQGeo inspection and survey for corrosion application. Brent's going to go through that. So, and then I think this is the last one and then I'm opening it up for Q&A. So, MDU Utilities Group is eight states. We're about a million gas customers, 170,000 electric customers. There were four branded utilities merged in 2008. The One Vision, One Utility initiative really has been ongoing for the last several years. But in the last two years, we've really been focused on aligning our O&M manuals. So we're going to have one operating maintenance manual across the eight states. The one way that we accomplish that is through our Maximo or Joint Utility Maximo project. We implement all of our maintenance in the last two years for the gas and electric side of the business. So, really what we did was we aligned our procedures. That was the first step in the process, working with our team. And then in conjunction with that, we would roll out the digital solution in Maximo and mobile at the same time. So, we kind of staged that in, broke it up into pieces and phased it in over a two-year period. So, we have that implemented. One of those was the corrosion track. And that's what we're going to focus on today. But it's been a good initiative. It kicked off in 2019. And we've got a couple more years. We're transitioning into construction right now. So, that just kind of gives you an overview of where we're at. We are an ESRI GIS shop. So, our base platform. And then we have different mobile solutions. CGI, P-Field, PCAD is one solution that we use for mobile as well as IQGEO's inspection and survey. So, I think what we'll do is go ahead and just transition it over to Dustin. Have him introduce himself and give you some corrosion overview. Kind of talk a little bit about the business side. Thank you, Lance. Hi, I'm Dustin Knowles. I'm the manager of corrosion control for utility groups operations in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. And I'll give you a brief overview of our department as it stands today. We have two managers, myself for the Western States. And I have a counterpart who oversees the Midwestern States. We each have three lead supervisors that have a total of 16 corrosion technicians that roll up underneath them. And the entire department rolls up under the integrity management group. To discuss some of the challenges that we had as we were implementing the jump maximal project that ultimately led us to IQGEO's inspection and survey solution for our field data acquisitions. We really started with the department reorder. Initially, the corrosion techs reported up through different divisions within the utility group. We had some techs reported to field ops management. And in other areas, they didn't have full-time corrosion techs. They utilized field ops personnel to complete corrosion related duties. Also, we had a unifying the corrosion team's core responsibilities. Those roles weren't originally the same throughout the utility group as well. That was a pretty big challenge. After the reorg was executed, we really had to shift our focus on unifying the corrosion procedures. We were operating under three different corrosion procedures across the eight states. And challenges with that, you know, really had to lie with the different legacy practices that we were using. We all had different electrical continuities of our gas systems that we had to deal with. And this was not a quick process or an easy process. And it continued well into the Maximo design build for our team. We also kind of had an aggressive launch schedule on our track as well. That presented some challenges. As we got into the Maximo design for corrosion, field data acquisition became a big issue. And what we thought we might go with really isn't where we ended up in the end. And that put kind of a time crunch on us as well. My group was moving forward with a corrosion specific data logging multimeter tied to a proprietary corrosion software application. And that system had some associated network issues, security issues, and was fast approaching its end-full use of life. So we kind of looked at some of the other solutions that were available on the market and let us stand some different roads. And ultimately, we kind of looked internally as well what the utility group had already deployed. And that process ultimately led us to IQGO's inspection and survey solution. And with that, I'll turn it over to Brent to give you a demo on it. Thanks, Dustin. Let me get my screen up. Hopefully, you are seeing the correct one. Okay. So I'm hoping you're seeing Maximo. Now I'm the source of record. So excuse me, let me introduce myself. I'm Brent Arnold. I'm the supervisor of the operation systems group. I oversee all the business analysts within the for the Maximo project and for the INS implementation. So just a little backstory on how we are managing the data. We are using Maximo as a source of record to hold all of our results and our location data. We have, as Lance mentioned, we do have ESRI as our GIS system. We have integrated all of the locations to Maximo. They sync over and they show up as a map feature within the INS application. So quick overview on how we built it because it will reflect on how we see it in INS. Within the PM application within Maximo, we have built a route to maintain our locations that would need to be done on a survey schedule. So this is a casing route for the Bismarck town. If I go to the route, I can see within here I have 17 locations that I need to survey. So if I go to INS, this order comes over. And I will just select that one. And I will get my casing order. So we did also have a requirement as part of the compliance and reporting for the different DOTs or the different PUCs within the company. We do need to track tools. So as the service techs are choosing the orders that they want to do for the day, they are required to pick a tool. And these tools do come back into Maximo as they complete the orders. So once they've done that. Give me a second. There we go. So once they've selected the orders that are going to work for the day, they go into it just as a normal service point inspection. We had the requirement of when they're completing the orders, they need to see specific data on the site. I believe the county's demo from New Zealand was very similar where we're seeing some spec values for this particular location. Those spec values are stored within Maximo. And we do get some data also from our ESRI system into the INS application. Part of the requirements of the corrosion department was that based on these spec values, we may have different things that we need to control as far as questions and answering. So we initially started the system as on the spec page so that when they walk up to a location, they can see the current state of the inspection they need to do. So in this case, we have a certain set of specs here. Once they've set these specs, now they go to their tasks and they're asking the questions. We have a very dynamic form based on what they are able to read. So if they walk up and for whatever reason, this casing is not readable, we limit the questions that they can see. We also control this through the specs. So as you can see, as I bounce through here, I have different things that are required based on what I've chosen. So this was very, very important to the corrosion team. Another feature that is actually in progress now is adding validation to these forms so that we have acceptable values entered. So if they ever have something that's say too high, too low, or just doesn't make sense, then it will kick out a soft warning so that they don't enter a value that we know is going to be out of compliance. Within INS or within the corrosion department, they also use this to take care of other deficiency orders and things that are found. So in this case, if they have an unacceptable pipeline marker or the vent conditions needs to be replaced, they actually have the opportunity to route this back to a corrosion rep or to a field staff user. So and that's built within Maximo, but they can decide who works on that order as a follow up. So as I run through and complete these, we send these responses back to Maximo. And within Maximo, we have set up a calculation based flow tree to decide whether or not we have a deficiency and whether or not we need to create a deficiency. So once I submit this order, and I missed one. So this order would then go back to Maximo. Maximo will run through the calculations and decide if we need to go back and do a follow up work order at that location. It's really been a very good joint project that we've worked on together. They've really understood and helped us design the system to meet the very, very specific requirements of the corrosion department. So within this, we do have multiple ways and we have another opportunity to work deficiency type orders, as I mentioned. So the corrosion group can work any of their own deficiencies back within Maximo or within INS. So it's not just the initial survey that we're doing within INS. It is truly the full inspection. So in the initial inspection that we do annually and then any deficiency follow ups. So, and these forms work very much the same way. We do have the spec values and the tasks that are driven off of those. I would turn it back over.