Breaking down silos and enabling new capabilities between office and field.

Welcome to today's Energy Central Power session entitled, New frontiers in grid operations, breaking down silos and enabling new capabilities between office and field. Before we begin, I would love to thank our sponsor of today's event, IQGeo. Without them, this event would not be possible. Now I'd like to turn the floor over to the moderator of today's event, Mike Smith, to kick things off. Mike, welcome to the event. You have the floor. Very good. Thank you, PJ. Thank you to our panelists and welcome everybody who has been able to join us today. We have some really interesting stuff planned for you today with these subject matter experts, and we'll be diving into those in just a minute. What I'd like to do before we get too into the details here, as you can see from the agenda, I had a few opening remarks I wanted to share with you that really kind of frame the issues we'll be discussing today. And you can see we'll be drilling down into GIS mobility, asset inspection, design and as-built processes, and outage mobility. But to set the table for that, we wanted to look at a few of what I would call kind of the big picture issues that are driving a lot of the activity within those spaces. So, PJ, next slide. I think we all know that we've had some major hurricanes come through the U.S. this year. And as you can see here, these, of course, impact literally millions of customers with lots of impact, not only in terms of finance, but also safety and being able to maintain just your lifestyle. So, one of the things that we'll be talking about today has all these storms and outages as part of what I'll call the background noise, why this stuff is important. You know, how, if, and when can outages be restored more effectively, more efficiently? What are some of the things from a technology and business process standpoint that will better equip utilities to minimize the impacts of these storms? Because I think, as we all know, they're not going away. So, any improvements we can make to mitigate some of the problems associated with these massive storms is a good thing. And we'll be talking about that today. Next slide, please. Also, you know, it's important that we look at this from the financial side of the house, simply because maintaining the grid, particularly with what we see coming ahead in terms of electrification, electric vehicles, all those sorts of things, as well as just the aging infrastructure. There is a lot of money being spent to maintain the grid and prepare for this new energy environment that we're all entering into. So, it is important that we keep in mind that when you look at O&M, when you look at the customer side of the house and the capital investments, these things are all going to be growing over the coming years. And it does beg some questions around how the heck are we as an industry going to pay for all of this? But I think there are some answers, and we'll uncover some of that today when we talk about some of the technologies and business process improvements therein. Next slide, please. And when we talk about the cost, here's another couple perspectives from this. And this is just some of the research we did in preparation for today's session. Again, I mentioned electrification. You know, that's going to have a real impact on the grid and how we manage the grid and some of the challenges therein. You know, I had an opportunity to speak with the manager of electric vehicle programs at a large investor-owned utility about a month ago. About electrification overall, we talked about the growth in EVs. And I said, how the heck is our industry going to manage all this? And he said, yeah, it's a challenge. But, you know, one of the things that he and his group look at is we've had challenges before, for instance, in the 60s and 70s as air conditioning took off. That changed the grid and its dynamics and load forever. So, as an industry, we have a pretty good track record of responding to these things. But that's not to minimize some of the challenges that we have ahead. And again, today's discussion, we're going to be looking at some of the tools, processes, solutions that will help us mitigate some of these challenges. Next slide, please. This is some research I was actually involved in with the Utility 2030 Collaborative, where, among other questions, we were looking to get at how well are utilities prepared for this new energy environment, specifically here, asking about distributed energy resources and then grid scale renewables. And what's interesting here, I think, just a brief takeaway, is that utilities have told us they're prepared for DERs. In fact, most of them have programs. They're well down that path. Grid scale, pretty prepared, but not to the same degree. And I think this may evolve over time, particularly as utilities start to see that there are some economies of scale and some real benefits to doing things at the grid scale level. So, these are all things that we've talked about here just in these opening remarks that are impacting what the grid's going to look like in the future, how those assets on the grid will be managed, and what that looks like in terms of blue sky operations as well as gray sky operations, where we have storms and other types of emergencies. So, having said that, we'll move to our next slide. And this is where we are going to introduce our panel. We're very fortunate to have this group with us today. This represents decades upon decades of expertise in the topics we'll be covering in today's session. So, I do want to just tell you a little bit about each of our panelists. Then we're going to dive into the actual session. So, first, we have Amber Connors. Amber is with SMUD's Customer and Grid Operations Technology Center. She has over 25 years of experience with 15 of those being focused on the electric utility industry. She's currently responsible for the delivery of Next Generation Utility Roadmap at SMUD. Her team includes, and this is quite a list. I don't know how she does all this. Her team includes operation technology and network engineering, real-time applications, energy trading and contracts, grant and vendor management, customer choice aggregation, ITGIS, customer technology, AMI technology, and work management. That is quite a list. Previously, Amber was the manager of real-time application deploying SMUD's ADMS and DERMS platform. In addition, she has had extensive experience in managing complex deliverables and adapting and changing to changing requirements and shifting priorities to successfully implement and support ERP systems like SAP and CRM. Amber is a PMP and is also Scrum certified. And has received certification in the ProShi management, change management process. So, Amber, thanks so much for joining us today. We're going to be hearing from you in just a couple of minutes. Our next panelist is Ken Derrimer. Ken was the director of asset management of a large investor-owned utility on the West Coast. He retired just like a couple of weeks ago. So, we're really pleased that he was able to join us today as he can look back over his 30 years of experience in the electric and gas utility industry where he's worked in the areas of finance, regulatory compliance, data analytics, and asset management. In his role as the director of asset management, Ken led the development and implementation of asset strategies, data tools, and field technology solutions to drive a more data-driven and risk-informed decision-making approach in managing critical company assets and infrastructure. Ken has a BS in business administration and an MBA both from University of California at Riverside. So, Ken, thank you for joining us. Our next panelist is Robert Sarfie. He's a managing partner with the Boreas Group. Robert's been around the industry for a while. It's great to reconnect with him. I'm sure many of you are familiar with him and his expertise. Robert is widely recognized for his experience in delivering business vision and technology solutions to electric utilities. Robert has successfully led numerous business transformation initiatives for large and mid-tier electric utilities in North and South America. Prior to co-founding the Boreas Group in 2001, Robert held management and leadership positions with management, consulting, and engineering firms. He's a bachelor of electrical engineering with first-class honors from the Royal Military College of Canada and also holds a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo. He's a licensed professional engineer in the province of Ontario and is a member of the IEEE. Robert has published and presented over 40 papers related to improving distribution systems operations, smart grid planning, and technology benefit realization. So, Robert, great to have you on board. And our final panelist that I will introduce to you all today is Troy Friesel. He is a product manager at IQGEO where he applies his extensive experience in distribution reliability and smart grid engineering. His professional journey began in power delivery at Florida Power & Light. He is now based in Tampa, Florida, where Troy's expertise is instrumental in driving the development of innovative products that cater to the dynamic needs of the utility networks across the lifecycle. His approach is characterized by a blend of technical acumen and practical insights, ensuring that the solutions he oversees are not only technically advanced, but also grounded in solving real-world problems for utility operators. His leadership and commitment to operational excellence have proven to be pivotal in the creation of tools and systems that enhance the efficiency and sustainability of energy distribution. So, Troy, thank you for joining us. And again, thanks to our panel. If we can jump to the next slide, we're going to jump into our questions. And as you all may recall, when we look at, I believe it was the second slide, we do have four areas where we're going to dive in and kind of really look more granularly at some of these specific areas where some of the technologies and processes are really changing the game around how we're managing the grid. But we wanted to ask a couple of more high-level questions first. And again, this is to help kind of frame these issues of how the grid is being managed with all of the change that's happening. So, Amber, I'm going to start with you. And we've talked a little bit about this, particularly around fieldwork and some of the challenges there. So, as fieldwork becomes more digitized and in this transition, it sometimes takes quite an effort and a lot of time to get everyone on board. I'm sure we've all heard the stories of, you know, handwritten notes on map books and pickup trucks out in the field, or someone has a spreadsheet, someone else has an asset management system that they're deploying, et cetera. So, what are some of the things that you're going to talk about? What are some steps that leadership can take to ensure that all the field staffs are making this transition? And I'm sure that pulls in technology and workforce demographics and the processes and all that. So, what are some things that you and your team are doing to help smooth this transition to a more digital workforce in the field? No, thank you, Mike. And good morning to everyone. Really, I think you need to focus on communication and change management. Really acknowledging that this really is a big change. I think a lot of times people think, oh, technology is going to solve a problem. But you have to look at, you know, people and processes, as you mentioned. Also, acknowledging and knowing everybody reacts to change and technology differently. There needs to be a strong commitment from leadership and really have that alignment on why. Why are we doing this? Be clear on what the problem is that we're trying to solve and really have metrics to support and track those. I think it's very important to include change management, at the beginning of the project. Really spend that time to understand and confirm your as-is solution and processes. You want to make sure that they're documented, that they're correct, and truly listen to what are the pain points. You could use workshops, ride-alongs, SME interviews, and then really talk and know your SMEs in this space. They're doing the work day in and day out. They're your expert. They know the work better than anyone. So, really make sure that you're asking them so they can share with you what those opportunities for change are. If it is their idea, you're going to get that buck in. And they really want to support that. I think it's also very important to have the folks that are doing the job be part of that core team. They need to be your change agents. They need to be the ones out with their peers, attending staff meetings, attending tail boards. They need to share the information. They need to listen and ask questions and understand what other issues their peers are having. And again, don't forget that importance of documentation and training. There's going to need to be multiple forms as folks learn differently. We found it successful when we've done a round of training. And then we step back and do a small refresher. In addition, we've provided lab time for independent learning. That builds that confidence. And during the lab time, it's important to include some of the project team to help address any questions. That folks may have. Co-location, I think, is another opportunity here, right? It's very important for teams to work together, to feel cohesive. We've done this in multiple spots across SMUD. But a couple that I'll just highlight is with our distribution system operations engineers and our IT real-time systems, they're co-located. They're on the same floor. They're working together as a unit. And so I think that really supports the why and what are we trying to fix. And then again, just to close out here, again, resharing the why. You can't communicate enough. And as folks are working through some of the issues, if you can reshare the why, continue to support that, they can see that friendly light at the end of the tunnel. That's good. I love the why and having that as part of the focus. I did want to ask one corollary question about the workforce. I'm sure you have probably people who are maybe early 20s who are maybe just coming online. And you probably have folks who've been there for 30 years. So are you seeing a difference in how if someone who's, my daughters are in their 20s, they live on their phones, right? Versus old people like me, not so much. So are you seeing differences in how the workforce is embracing the technology? And if so, are there things you have to overcome in that regard? You know, we do, right? I mean, I think there's that, you know, folks do react differently to change to technology. It could be due to age. It could be due to backgrounds. It could be due to sometimes even workload. And that's really finding the person that's embraced it, you know, regardless of, you know, if you have somebody who's embracing it, working with folks that aren't embracing, you can bring them along, right? Because they can see that value. And a lot of times, once folks get a little bit over the fear and see the value, they'll come along, right? And sometimes you do that through conversation. Sometimes it's through additional training. And we did see when we deployed our ADMS in Durham, having the lab time for folks to go in and get familiar with the product in a dev or a QA environment a little bit on that. And so I think that's a really important part of that. And I think that's a really important part of that. And I think that's a really important part of that. that everybody uses the field tools you know you say oh my god you know the interface on that like I hear run DMC playing in the background or something that looks so old so it it's got to be a tool that works now what it it actually meets the use cases and I hate the term use case because you know in a lot of cases it's what somebody will say when they don't want to do something so what do you know your use cases well you've got to it has to solve a business purpose it has to be fast and it has to be easy okay so your first responsibility is that that tool that they're using to visualize the data to query the data to update the data it actually has to work needs to work not obvious especially when you look at the competitive landscape it's quite frankly a disgrace for the industry the second thing is you're responsible for looking after training and all sorts of people aspects you know similar to what what amber was saying you have to provide these people with the right training to use that tool that actually works okay and that's that's often ignored especially in engineering and operations you know the attitude is we've spent so much money we got pushed up against the deployment the deployment time and quite frankly there's no budget left so we're just going to skimp on the training you know these are smart guys they'll figure it out and I use guys for me as they're neutral you know and we skimp on the training we don't make these personalized organizational training organizational change management plans you know by some type of persona or by some type of demographic you need to focus on on on the people and quite frankly if it works you've spent the focus on the people then it's the responsibility of the people to use it and part of that is you know a lot of times organizational change management focuses on the actual individual contributor and I would say in a lot of cases it's actually the first level supervisor that that's it's the problem you know they aren't pushing and encouraging the users to use that software so if we want to clean up data if we want better data we've got to provide a tool that works we've got to focus on the training and the people and the people have to have to use it and if those three things aren't satisfied it's quite frankly a leadership issue and in a lot of cases it is a leadership issue with the messy data I tell people everybody spends so much money on software you know and they always focus on the software if we look at how much money our industry has spent on the data it makes that software look cheap so let's start treating that data with the respect it deserves because of the amount of money we spent on it yeah points duly noted you know just one observation you talked about you know when there's a system being implemented or a solution being implemented sometimes training is almost an afterthought I don't think you use that word but you know it's late in the project and the budgets pretty slim and training is often what gets cut or is minimized I can remember and it looks like we have a question coming in for the audience I'll jump to that in just a minute earlier in my career I worked at a software company in this space and we could look at different projects and the percent percent of the budget in an RFP response that was allotted to training based on their budget and what their feedback from them was we can almost predict with certainty the likelihood of a successful implementation just based on that alone and again that goes to change management that goes to getting everybody involved and committing that part of the budget to the training so yeah I think we've all seen some of those and had some more stories I do want to jump over to a comment from the audience and Robert it's directed at you so I'm just going to read it verbatim and we'll go from there so Robert thank you for voicing the issue where projects run up against schedule and budget delays and place the burden on the training slash OCM Oh organizational change management have you found techniques that can help head off early enough to make an impact so so what are some things that project leaders and executives can do to try and beat beat it to the punch before it but that becomes an issue okay this is you know I've got this great quote from a client he used to say easier said than done and what it comes down is quite frankly transparency and strength of leadership and when the problems arise you know quite often the the natural tendency especially for relatively you know I'll say individual contributors is they think they're going to pick it up and the key is the first signs of issues be honest with people be honest with the leadership about the implications and quite often you know when I see problems it's because people have said oh we're gonna pick it up oh we're gonna pick it up well reality is especially today we aren't going to pick it up and you know then it comes down to you know that that adult discussion amongst the leadership team there's some obligations both ways but it's not easy but transparency and being honest with yourself and being honest with others which as I said you know easier said than done but that's that's what it comes down to that there's no there's no silver bullet unfortunately all right you know all the heck out of it right right well good yeah yeah I can also jump in here Mike again you know absolutely those transparent and open and honest conversations will be very important um I think some opportunities right to make sure that it isn't forgotten is integrating training and OCM as part of every project right don't think of it as that afterthought I think in the past we've always thought about okay we're going to deploy technology um and and we're going to use some of the techniques that that Robert spoke to but really it's taking that step back and saying as part of our project program methodology is incorporating and ensuring that that folks are working on the projects also understand the the need and the benefits of training and change management and I think that will help with you know some of the success but again lots of learning to still happen and a lot of challenges for sure Amber's spot on and you know I tell people I have to confess I've been in this industry a long time you know and I have to say Ken you're looking darn good if somebody told me you just retired and had 30 years in I'd say they were lying so whatever you're doing that that clean Southern California living I need some okay but you know I listen to I I go to conferences and I listen to the problems and I think I I saw these problems in the mid 90s you know like why is it they're in 2024 and we just didn't learn our darned lesson about this you know I I was speaking to somebody last week and they were telling me oh yeah we're going to deploy but you know we've got all these issues so I said oh wait a second like why are you deploying if you have all of these issues you know you're just you're basically sailing into a storm and you know it and they said oh well my my fourth quarter bonus is based on that like well you know what are your leadership and say it's not my fault that my vendor didn't deliver and the vendor wasn't IQ geo by the way so this is like kudos to IQ geo not them but go to the leadership and be honest about it and you know if you if you really weren't at fault you know maybe if it if one of my guys came to me and said hey this is happening I want to do the right thing but my bonus is at stake I think most leadership is willing to have that discussion aren't they Ken and Amber as opposed to we'll deploy I give them the bonus then I realize like what on earth have I done you know my phone just won't stop ringing everybody's upset the customers are even complaining it's about that honesty and sometimes it's hard it's hard you know period but that's why we're adults right hey Mike if I can add one thing and by the way looks could be deceiving as far as a being ability to retire after 30 years any one thing I wanted to add and really double down on with both amber and robert said from a leadership standpoint I think it's also important to make sure that leadership is engaged early and often on on projects and you know making sure you have a strong director off whatever it is director executive sponsorship team that are in the loop that way when these issues come up you can discuss them and you could you can have every month be aligned on a course of action so that you can you can keep making sure you have training and and in an OCM it continued to be part of it because if you do start cutting that out we all know what ends up happening you end up you end up really the user acceptance is really at risk and then you end up having to spend more time on the back end during during the storming period so it's really important to keep that leadership aligned and informed early and often and making sure they're part of the touch points and the decisions as you go along in the project good thanks Ken and I know you've been been there and experienced all that firsthand PJ I'm gonna ask if you could maybe advance the slide because we're going to start talking about some of the specific areas where we're going to do more of a deep dive and we're going to start with GIS mobility Robert I'm gonna stick with you for this first question what are some examples of where GIS mobility adds value to engineering and operational tasks and processes it might be a loaded question but it's open-ended so take it where you will but we really want to see where as utilities are making these investments in GIS mobility you know where's the value really being realized maybe you know it's 80 20 or 80 percent of the values coming from 20 percent of the process or maybe there's some other nuances there what are you seeing so let's let's look at in my mind the first place to start is let's look at what quality is and who benefits from the quality okay there's the completeness of the data is all the data there the second aspect is it electrically correct so does it make sense from an electrical connectivity perspective might not be accurate to field but reality is okay you're off by one AWG wire size one transformer size who cares in the big picture and then there's the accuracy to field okay so we're talking about completeness electrical correctness accuracy to field now there's the door the people that directly benefit from the the GIS mobility which are the actual people in the field and it's everything from you know blue blue sky day navigation storm or some type of catastrophic event knowing what was supposed to have been there to assist in the damage assessment consistency in inspections you know one of one of my clients a large large IOU used to say the best person to make the decision is the person seeing the problem and in order to in order to understand how to make that best decision they have to have all the available data available to them you know when I look at the the the profile of the typical field employee those guys fish and hunt the younger ones play video games so that The more mature ones, such as myself, don't tell me they don't know how to use a hunting app or a fishing app to figure out where to go. They can darn well figure out how to use a mobile GIS if they want. The younger ones, the level of sophistication of video games today make mobile GIS look like a child's toy, to be honest about it. So if they have the right data, they can make the right decisions. Unfortunately, it's not just about GIS data. It's about integration with other systems, you know, asset management systems. But they make the right decision when they have the right data. We need to trust them to make the right decisions. But what interests me even more is, I'll say, the consequential beneficiaries of mobile GIS. And I think that's getting more important, okay, is having eyes on my infrastructure 24-7 able to correct my data so that I create that, you know, that mythical digital twin that vendors talk about, okay? I don't know what's going to happen to my industry, quite frankly, in the next four years. Thought I did. Who the heck knows? But what I do know is if I have a really good model, I can do some simulations to react to it no matter where I'm going. You know, DERMS, ADMS, OMS. I can use that data. If I correct the data in the field and I bring it back promptly and I show people that the data's being corrected because they did a good job, my data gets better and better. You know, otherwise, it's a death spiral with the data. I want that data for modeling and simulation. And that's absolutely huge. I don't get it unless I enable my people in the field. Super critical. That's what mobile GIS is about. So I'll go back to some of my first points is the stuff's actually got to work. Fast, simple, easy. It's got to work. And if it doesn't work, let's just go home. Very good. All right. Good points. While we're still on the GIS mobility part of our discussion today, I do want to open this up to our entire panel and ask about some best practices, some of which we've actually touched on just in the first part of our session today. But what are some best practices around managing data as part of a utility's GIS mobility processes? And I'm asking this question really with more of a data hat on than a GIS hat on. But by that, I mean, Robert alluded to this as well. There's a lot of interaction and integration between some of these systems that maybe historically have been separate, but now they're leveraging data sets and moving data from one to another, et cetera. So when you're talking about GIS mobility, what are some of those best practices to make sure that the data is right? And Robert's touched on some of those, but I wanted to open up to our panel with all the experience that you all have had. So what are some thoughts on that? Who wants to jump in first? I can jump in first and then pass it on. Yeah, no, I would agree. I think Robert's raised a lot of great and valuable points. And I think Robert's also mentioned that we're not all there, but we're all striving to get there in regards to best practices. And that's really, again, data quality, accuracy, consistent processes across departments. So we're making sure that we're capturing the data. We're capturing it accurately. We have the ability to capture it in a way that it's not free form, right? We want to do more dropdowns. We want to add more automation to help improve the accuracy and ensure that we have the correct coordinates. And so that's really the thing that I can just highlight that we've done in the ADMS and in Durham space, as well as OMS, is really the nightly import. So we do a nightly import. It's an automated process. So we can bring over that built state model from GIS into ADMS. And then we overlay the operated state. And so we were finding that that happens at 3 a.m. in the morning, and it was continuing to fail because to the point sometimes it's not working. It's data. Sometimes it's process. So while we're working on cleaning up data, cleaning up processes, we've implemented some pre-checks so we can correct some of this data during the day so that we're not negatively impacting some of our end users, to Robert's point, because they need the data, they need it to be working, and they need it to be accurate. If I could ask one corollary question on the pre-checks, who is it that does that? Has that just been built into the overall process, or is it a separate entity that does pre-checks? So it's the IT team that's created automated pre-checks. And so with those pre-checks, depending on the type of data, there's email notifications that get sent to various groups and teams to work and look and validate and correct the data. And then there are some pieces of data that once it's identified in the pre-check that we make an automatic resolution of the data. Okay, great. Troy, I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit here because you have a wealth of experience at Florida Power & Light and now with IQGEO. What are you seeing either from your experiences at the utility or maybe now in working with some of your customers? Yeah, sure. So I would say you definitely want to be able to build trust in the system. I don't think users are willing to invest in the time it takes to implement these types of data quality changes and practices. If at the end of the day, they think it's just kind of a garbage system that they can't trust. So always trust but verify, obviously, if you're going to do something that is critical. But I think data trust is one of the biggest first foundational steps. To Amber's point, I think anywhere you can insert data governance to do a bit of hand-holding. If things aren't as simple as doing it on paper like they always used to do, people aren't going to follow the process. So the more ways that we can enforce data rails, put in things like pick lists and kind of guide users down a streamlined and seamless path to get to the information input that they need to do, the more chance of success for the process to actually work out. And I think finally, what I'd add is getting more into the concept of automation. Anywhere we can automate data input, we can automate integrations with other systems that may already have the data to increase the efficiency of the data input. We create a system that has the foundations to actually be sustainable. Good. Good one. All right. Well, I'm sorry. Jump in, please. I can't resist saying one thing, and I agree with what Troy's bringing up. But what I've often found is in a utility, when I look at the field workers, the field workers are very, very motivated. They're very motivated and very committed to those customers, period. You know, I sincerely believe it. They're also committed to their peers in the utility. What typically happens is they see something that they view as inefficient, or I'll even go as far as to say stupid. And as a consequence, they take a shortcut. And when they take a shortcut, them saving 10 seconds could quite frankly cause days of issues in the downstream. And so just educating people, I've been in meetings with clients where, you know, I'll have these cross-functional teams together just talking about the process end to end. And someone will say like, you know, I don't have that data. And you know what it does to me? And then you'll have the person that was responsible for shortcutting that out because they were trying to do good. And they'll say, oh my God, like for the past 10 years, I just, I didn't do that because I didn't know. Like, you're my buddy. I play hockey with you, you know? And I was doing that. So it's educating everybody as to the consequences because the utility employees, they do want to do well. They do want to serve the customer. They just don't know. So it's all of that communications that Amber was talking about and Troy was talking about, making it clear to everybody. I know it's cumbersome, but this is what you've got to do because we need it. And that's often neglected because especially today when it's so easy to just like, bang someone a text message, you know, or a team's message, just talk to them. Like, why do you need this? Fix it. Right. Yeah. And as you were making those remarks, Robert, I'm looking at my notes here and that really echoes what Amber opened up with around communications and change management and transparency. So I think this is all becoming part of the secret sauces to make this stuff work. The way that was intended. Let's move on to our next deep dive around asset inspections. And in doing so, I'll just remind our audience, please jump in with questions. We'll make sure we do all we can to incorporate those into what we're covering today. So in the asset inspection space, Troy, I want to start with you and talk to you about some of the transformation that's going on with some of the newer technologies and tools. You know, I think we've probably all seen, heard, read about some of the things, for instance, with drones. And getting the imagery from the drones and even training models so that AI can actually do the inspections and identify, you know, a cracked insulator or rust on a transformer or what have you. So there's a lot of technology stuff happening. A lot of it comes down to the data level. But a lot, of course, is the technology itself and the process and all of that. So as you look at asset inspections in your role there at IQGEO, what should utility asset management professionals be aware of as they take on more technology as part of their asset inspection processes? What are some things you're seeing and maybe some things you can point them towards? Yeah, sure, Mike. So drones and AI inspection processes is very near and dear to my heart. Both with my current role at IQGEO as well as my previous role with NextEra. Energy and Florida Power and Light. To Robert's sentiment earlier, it is quite mind blowing to think about what the next four years and beyond could look like. You know, you think you have an idea and then you see a new article pop out about some crazy technology you never even thought of. So the industry is changing every day, especially in this specific area. When I was back at FPL, I was managing a couple of different applications that were involved in the process of inspections. And if you're familiar with their programs at all, they're very forward on using drones, both fixed wing and quadcopters and so on and so forth in their processes. I think it's going to revolutionize the industry. So I think one of the first questions I would be asking myself as a utility when looking at different software solutions is, is my software that I'm looking at able to adapt to that future where it's not a person walking around anymore? It's not a person driving in the car with binoculars. It's a drone, right? So what's the location is being used? The drones either maybe flying autonomously or being controlled by a user. How is that data coming back? How is it being fed into my system? What are those different processes? And beyond just the thought of that process and wrapping your head around that future potentially, how am I going to deal with that massive amount of data? Some of the initial growing pains that you might see with something like that is just the sheer amount of data being saved and needing to be processed. It's honestly overwhelming. I remember there used to just be like flash drives or big solid state drives getting mailed with feeders or substations worth of drone inspections on them, right? Manually flown, right? Let alone, we're putting this on an automated process and these drones are flying on a daily basis every few years, maybe every substation. But just terabytes and terabytes of this drone imagery that's coming back and not having a system to actually do something meaningful with it. It's a lot of effort, a lot of time and a lot of money for not really much value. So I think software and specific tools made for these types of use cases are really going to become essential to capitalize on these investments and actually get ROI out of all these efforts, right? It sounds really cool that you have a drone program or you're moving to these new drone and AI technologies, but if you're not actually delivering any value from them, they sound great on paper, but maybe that hype curve you're still having to navigate, actually plugging them into your business process. And that's the other question, right? What is the outcome of this, right? How am I able to operationalize this as a utility and actually improve my processes related to reductions in reliability indicators, safety, semi, safety, whatever you're attacking, maybe all of those. But I think the image recognition piece is going to be key there because again, with massive amounts of data, let alone the storage issues of that, unless you're going to stand up to it, you're going to have to set up a team of 50, 100, 1,000 people to sift through condition assessment images as I used to have to do in my daily job, looking at these things relating to, okay, I'm looking at five different pictures of the same pole. Which angle am I looking at? What pole am I at? And what feeder am I on? What's upstream? What's downstream? There's no relation to the network model and no way to understand and kind of mesh all those images in together to something that is intelligible to a human. In the shorter term, and maybe it could be further operationalized in some type of AI model and things of that nature moving forward. Again, you're not going to be able to use the data. So I really think that image recognition piece is critical. And then further taking those findings and then relating them to some type of historical system that can say, by substation, by feeder, by area, where are my critical conditions? Where are my category five conditions that could take out a feeder or a substation at any point? And then be able to prioritize and relate those to your, whether it be your outage management system or your dispatch systems, being able to actually run on those things and make actual change start happening by connecting these new emerging technologies that are just kind of mind blowing every time you see a new version or a new algorithm come out. It's really exciting to see what that future holds, but there's definitely a lot of growing pains to reach that ideal future. Yeah. And I'll just comment on one thing you said, as you were describing all of that, a couple of things leap out. You talk about things like data management, training models for AI capabilities. That also suggests there's some new skill sets that may not be resident in a typical T&D organization. So I think there's a skill set question, there's an organizational question and how you incorporate those skill sets into the process in a meaningful way. So you're getting that business value because quite often these are not small investments and you want to make sure you're getting that ROI. And that ROI can be financial, it can be safety, it can be reliability, et cetera. Of course, good stuff. The one challenge comes in, as you mentioned, those skill sets probably don't exist in conjunction with also having knowledge of the T&D system, for example. So to be able to train resources, technical resources that can actually make these types of solutions come to life and be successful, those resources don't know what a transformer is. They might not know what a feeder is, a substation. So that knowledge transfer to be able to successfully implement those types of things, that's another thing you really want to make sure that you're looking for solutions and vendors that understand that on a holistic level. So they're not just taking a requirement at face value and trying to go implement it. They truly understand what is trying to be accomplished and what the constraints are. Yeah. And therein lies the heart of some of the challenges when people have those ITOT discussions, for sure. Before we move on, we do have a question from the audience. I think this is a good one for the entire panel. So I'll just read the entire thing to you all and then step back. So this is such a great discussion. Thanks for organizing this webinar. Thanks for the positive feedback. How can we get past the organizational culture and norms to break down the silos? Often there is a department or application-owned data that is not readily shared across the organization. How can organizations be better at breaking down these silos? And I think this is something that's pretty ingrained in utility culture, although I think it is changing with technology and process. What are some of your experiences around this silo issue and breaking them down? So I think it goes back to communication. Again, keep having the conversations. Don't give up. And then a way that you can force some of those conversations is put the shared enterprise performance goals cross-organizationally, right? So for example, if you have multiple business units that need to deliver on something and it is a challenge, if they have an enterprise performance goal, sometimes there's a little bit more willingness to have those conversations and execute. That's a good one. Robert, I think I saw your hand come up. Yeah, this is my opportunity to take a dig at Steerco's. And I'm going to do that because I put a lot of the blame for this issue on Steerco's in that the Steerco has become like a rubber stamp organization that meets so infrequently, they can't really address the problems. For me, the Steerco, is the way to solve a lot of these issues. You have the right people at the right level representing each of these organizations. And quite frankly, their job is blowing down these institutional barriers. And if you don't have that, good luck. Quite often, I'll see a problem. And there are these two organizations that, realistically, they're both right. But the problem is, I say, I'll quote George W. Bush here. I think he said, fast and wrong is better than slow and right. So you have these two competing organizations. They could, quite frankly, go either way. They just don't go anywhere because they keep on fighting. And you look at where they finally converge in the org chart, and you realize, wait a second. This converges at the CEO of the holding company. So how are we going to get this project issue resolved if it converges up in the stratospheric level? I'd be embarrassed to go to say, excuse me, we're arguing about the diameter of the pole in the GIS. They'd probably say, well, are you guys joking? Well, it's actually a really important issue. How do I display that pole? I'd be embarrassed to go to say, well, are you guys joking? Well, it's actually a really important issue. How do I display that pole on the mobile, on the small form factor device? So the right people have to be in the steer co. And there has to be the right executive leadership that has created a culture where people say, we need to get along. We need to make decisions. We need to work collectively for the benefit of the group as a whole. And quite frankly, in a lot of cases, I just don't think that happens because people are so politically motivated that things aren't getting done. So the right people that are truly committed on a steer co that's enabled will solve a lot of these problems. That's a good point. And I would just add that this part of the discussion here around breaking down these barriers, I think what makes it particularly challenging and kind of interesting is this is not happening in a static environment. This is happening where there's a great deal of change going on. An example that we've used in some of the work that I've been involved with is if you look at asset management practices, everyone has the crews do this. We have this system. We have this data. We have these processes, et cetera. But when you start looking, stepping back and looking at the broader grid where all of a sudden the nature of the grid is changing, for instance, we're going to have X percent of our residents are going to have rooftop solar. X percent is going to have EVs and there's charging stations. And it's the grid itself starts to look very different. So those folks that are maybe focused on asset management have to really start communicating with the operations side of the house. Even the forecasting side of the house where the nature of the forecast has to change. You have these traditionally disparate groups. All of a sudden, they have to be working together and sharing data and communicating. So it's not a static environment. In fact, it's actually really dynamic is one of the things that we're seeing. I do have a comment from the audience here that I'll share. And I think we've touched on this a little bit. But if any of you all wanted to give some feedback on this as well, that would be great. I think we've all experienced that. I know I saw it in my early days as a SCADA analyst looking at how the operational real-time folks, they didn't want anything to do with the rest of the organization, maybe for good reason. But I think that is changing as well. Are you all seeing data governance in some of the work that you're doing? Either a good example of it or maybe where it's not playing out so well? I was just going to jump in. I was thinking the same thing. As it relates specifically to data, you really need to have a very transparent and sound data governance policy in place so that folks not only understanding who owns the data, but how the data is used, how the data flows, how the data is captured, how one group might benefit from the data. Those are all kind of things that I know we've tried to start building at SDG&E. We're certainly not there yet. But just having a little more transparency on that. Because it's not an easy decision point, who a data owner should be. Because so many different groups touch it. And you don't want just IT to be the data owners of everything. You really have to have the team that has maybe the most influence over the data. But spelling that out and putting some structure in place does help break down some of those barriers. For sure, yeah. And Ken, as you're making those comments about who owns the data, that reminds me of what Troy was saying earlier about IT people. In so many words, Troy, I'll paraphrase. They know bits and bytes. People on the operations or engineering side know they know electrons, right? So making sure that that equation works out is going to be a real important part of that. While we're on this topic, Ken, I want to direct a question at you. With your experience at SDG&E, what are some of the tips that you can share in terms of how technology can help make asset management practices more effective? And by that, it could be faster, less expensive, better insights, better accuracy, data availability, integration with other systems. Very much a loaded question. What are some of the things that you all did in your 30 years at the utility in terms of really making a good bang for the buck for the investments in that technology? So thanks for the question, Mike. I think I'll kind of leverage some of the... I think Troy actually teed this up pretty well. And maybe what I'll do is share a couple of the initiatives that SDG&E has kind of undertaken over the last... I'd say maybe over the last four to five years specifically in this space. And it really does get to this value proposition, bang for your buck, as you call it. And for us, it really anchors around creating a more risk-informed, data-driven approach to how we manage our asset, specifically on our electric side. And maybe I'll focus a little bit on inspection since that's kind of the main topic here. And the first one I want to talk to, it starts with the data. I think we've established data is an important foundation. And so one of the things in asset management, when I came into the role that we really undertook is the need to bring our data together in a central repository. I know some folks call it a data lake, certainly not a data ocean. But at the end of the day, we have about 15... One of the things we found out on our electric distribution side is we've got about 15 plus source systems that capture some element of the data over the life of an asset. And so one of the things we really... One of the things we wanted to do is bring a process in where we can bring that data together. And whether it's... You take a main asset like a pole or conductor or cable, for those elements of assets, we want to bring all the different sources of data together. And then from there, then we work with a third party to then start developing asset health models where you can take that data and actually start to make an assessment of what's the asset health based. And it could be based on a number of different variables, age, type, where's the location of the asset. And so now you can start to actually use that data and build some sort of assessment on probability of failure. And now, once we got there, then we can start working with our engineering and some of our other operational teams that they can actually start using this data to inform some of their decision making on how they design some of their projects and programs. What we are now undertaking is then taking that asset health assessment and then actually converting it into what is the consequence of a failure. So layering in some of our consequence risk models where we can assess what is going to be the impact of the failure. Because then what that does is that gives you a better view of overall asset risk. And so as I mentioned before, we started that with kind of more of our more significant assets that we probably have better data on. And now we're starting to figure out how do we get to some other more minor units of those assets. It could be things like arresters or connectors. Things that you don't, probably most companies don't have very good data on. But that is an area where we're trying to get to. And ultimately, not only helping to design projects for engineers, but then also starting to inform how we do our asset inspection. So that's kind of the frontier we're in now. And the other program that's really kind of been linked with this is, and I know Troy talked about it quite a bit, is a drone program. We launched a drone assessment and investigation program probably about five years ago. And that was specifically as a wildfire mitigation program. As you know, I think everyone knows, California has had some pretty significant issues with wildfires. So one of our incremental wildfire mitigation programs was designing a drone program to really do inspections on all our back country assets that are more prone to wildfires. And then on top of that, then work with a third party to co-develop, once you get those photos, and I think we probably took about a million and a half photos, is develop a machine learning model to actually detect those infractions. And whether it's a broken insulator or even a loose bolt. And when we first did this, it was more, just get out there and invest, inspect as many assets as you can. But what we now are in the process is now, how do we take that technology that we implemented? How do we write something? How do we fine tune it? So that now we can actually not necessarily use it just as an incremental wildfire program, but use it as more of a cost effective supplement to our regular inspection program. It's called the corrective maintenance program. So we launched that in 2023, where we kind of downsized the program, but made it, really did it on more of a risk informed approach and utilizing that data that I talked about from our asset 360 program to help inform that. So we have one year under our belt. We're on that program. We're still learning a lot, but definitely, I think this is the wave of the future. But I think Troy's point is very well taken that, we just don't have unlimited capital in O&M to just do as many of these as we can. So we really wanna make sure we're getting the highest quality, best bang for our buck for these inspections going forward. So we're continuing to fine tune that, but I definitely think the image capture and being able to convert that image capture into machine learning via AI is definitely something that companies are gonna continue to invest in, but you just gotta invest it in the most effective and efficient and affordable way. And so that's kind of where we're at right now. Thanks, Ken. And I had kind of a question for you when you talk about asset health. I think that's pretty interesting. Robert, it looks like you had one too. Let me get back to you in just a second. When I hear asset health, I always think of, okay, you're now on the road to more predictive and prescriptive asset management. Are you seeing in your utility, or are you seeing the writing on the wall that, yeah, we're gonna be so far advanced in our asset health stuff, we're gonna be replacing assets right before they fail, which of course may not be practical, but are you seeing that movement towards true predictive asset management? Well, I think that's the ultimate goal, but we're far from there. We're still early in this journey. I mean, we're talking three, four years in. And utilities have had these types of programs for a long time and very specific assets, but we're definitely trying to look at and do this in a more holistic way. And a lot of it, I think, gets to the decision too about do you replace or do you repair as well? Not just your capital replacement, but I think it actually helps to inform your O&M. And I think understanding asset health, as I mentioned, is only part of it because I think you actually have to understand the consequence too. Because if it's a high failure but low consequence, then you just run it to fail. But if the consequence in the case of potentially igniting a fire, if the consequence is high, then that's where you probably will have more, maybe be a little more aggressive based on the data as far as a proactive replacement. Right, right. And Robert, you had your hand up, I think. Yeah. Yes. You know, I've had the pleasure of, over the course of my career, of having done work with both SDG&E and SMUD. And they're truly wonderful utilities with wonderful people. And I'll say sophisticated. Data governance, all of these programs that we're talking about, I think the thing that people need to remember is there was a book out there about writing, Anne Lamont, Bird by Bird. And these journeys, they take a long time. And that's what I think people have to realize is that, you know, you go to these best of class like SMUD and SDG&E and you think like, oh, my goodness, you know, this is great. You look at, you know, how long SDG&E have been working on it, and that's a lot of hard work and effort. And so people need to make a plan, stick with the plan, but start small like data governance, you know. You do need data governance. Everyone needs data governance. But like, you know, when the data governance manual is this big, you know, that thick, it's not good. Right? You've got to start small, implementable, just like everything. Start small and start realizing the benefits, you know. You aren't going to be as fit as Mike Smith overnight, right, Mike? I'm an old broken guy. 24 beer a day to be Mike Smith? It's like decades. If only. Interesting analogy. Thank you, Robert. I would like to move on to our next deep dive around design and as-built processes. So I'm going to open this question up to our panel. And this is an area where I'm going to lean into the panel. This is one space I really don't have much experience in. So let's hear from you all on this. With this wealth, can you all share some examples of where design and as-built processes have run into issues and what do the solutions look like? What do these challenges look like? And this, again, as we've seen in all the topics we've covered today, there's a technology piece, there's a data piece, there's a people and process piece. So what are some of those challenges in that design-built process and how have you all tackled that? I'm going to, Troy, I'm going to put you on the spot then. I'm going to ask you first. So what are some things that you're seeing? Again, you know, reflecting on your experiences at Florida Power & Light and all the work you're doing with your customers now at IQGEO. Yeah, I think the biggest issue is, well, there's too many issues to probably talk about. But one of the ones that comes to mind first is just the lead time of getting a change or an as-built back into the system, back to that concept of trusting the data that you're seeing. If you don't know if this is up to date, right, this could be, you know, very old and I'm just getting the update now, right? If there's months of queuing before I get a change back into the system and as-built from a constructed status, for example, I think that's maybe one of the big ones. The other one that's probably near and dear to the IQGEO side of the business is digitizing the process. There's so many utilities that still today rely on a piece of paper. And that piece of paper, getting back to an engineer and that engineer doing something with it and then handing it off to the next cubicle to do something with it. When I was just starting out as the distribution engineer at FPL, I used to have a paper like a pile this size on my desk of just all these notes I got back from the field. And things that I would need to file and that were, you know, probably very important, but I had other bigger things on my plate than to sit there and put a bunch of updates into the system, right? So the process does improve over time, but the more that you can digitize that and make things automated, if something changes in the field and there's a person there standing with the right equipment to capture that change, as someone mentioned before, they are the best equipped person to take care of that right then and there. The amount of times that I would go out and do a field visit, take a picture of a pole or take a picture of something, maybe even a video, and then, you know, go do four other site visits and then get back to my desk and sit down and say, okay, you know, it's time to put this into the system. And I go, oh, you know, I really should have got that from another angle or I can't really read this, you know, pinch and zoom or just scrolling through thousands of pictures on my iPhone of where was this picture that I took. As soon as you leave the field, you are no longer the best equipped person to make that change. So the more that we can enable that field user to be able to make a streamlined, quick input on the spot update to the system and feed that directly through without a bunch of, all for data governments, but minimize the amount of, you know, oversight of people that are not physically on site as well to call it that it's different than what's being reported. I think that's the crunch that we need to get on the as-built-in process. That's good. Go for it, Robert. Troy said something. It begs to ask the question. What's the ideal cycle time between as-built to being in the GIS as an as-built to actually loading that data into the ADMS? Am I allowed to ask that question? I'm curious what people's thoughts are, but I get asked that so often. And, you know, I think there's reality and there's a target. So any thoughts on that? Would you differentiate that? So ADMS is, I had a train of thought until you said ADMS. So GIS, anything that's not going to affect the connectivity model of the network? I would argue same day. I think that's a future we can work towards. If it needs to affect the connectivity model of the ADMS and therefore have other downstream implications, maybe put some additional checks and balances, but I'd be interested what others think. I'll tell you what my clients are telling me. My clients are telling me if it's some type of device under network control, so under system operations in the ADMS, they want to see it in the GIS within 24 hours of it going into the ground, preferably, quite frankly, they want to see a proposed date and they want the ADMS to actually energize that. And so 24 hours into GIS for as-built and 24 hours after that into the ADMS. If it's not under system control, so it's under district control, they'll tolerate five business days. Now, the problem is you say, oh, that shouldn't be that difficult. Like anything under system control, you say, okay, I get it. It's important. You can do it that tight. But just the volume of that work under the district control, I see some that, you know, the ADMS is updated every six months and the time between, you know, energized and into GIS, who knows? Because it's sitting somewhere with some element of, you know, paper associated with it. And that's what the problem is. And so the goal of the industry is constantly striving. And the only way in my mind to achieve that is through the automation that Troy, Amber, and Ken have quite frankly described. Yeah, because you're spot on there, Robert. I'm really looking to get those updates into the system as soon as possible. We do the ADMS updates nightly. We do, though, want to get to a point that if there are large changes that are happening through the day, that maybe we do a midday import. But again, that for us is a couple of years out, but that's our long-term goal. Very good. Very good. I'm going to ask another technology question in the design and as-built process side of things here. You know, Troy, originally I kind of wanted to ask you this. You've kind of answered part of this already. So I'll invite the panel to opine as well. But I think as an industry, we're seeing these as-built processes go from heavily manual to slowly becoming more automated, more of a digital work process. What are some of those advantages of this digital transformation in the as-built processes? And by the way, what are some of the disadvantages? But we've touched on some of those already, but maybe you all can expand on what are some of these advantages as we move towards a more digital design and as-built process? And I'll open that up to the panel. So I would say, you know, anytime you can automate, I think sometimes automation gets a bad rap and that folks feel like, well, then what am I going to do for my day-to-day job? And again, you're not automating typically to, you know, to put people out of a job, right? You're automating to allow folks to grow capacity in their day to do more of those innovative tasks, right? So especially in the GIS space, depending on what tool you use for your utility model and or if it's the same for your presentment model, if you give your folks the opportunity to, you know, automate and validate some of these important tasks, you're then allowing them a bit more time to work on that presentment and actually using the data to help solve other problems. So I definitely see that as a benefit. The one thing I would say is, so anytime you do go through an automation process and or leveraging AI, you know, really truly test that model end-to-end. You don't want to just rely on the technology until you've built that confidence. Right, right. Yeah, I was just going to add, you know, Amber, what you said is I think there's many benefits and I think we've kind of covered them, but I think that, and I wouldn't say it's a negative, but it's something very important is that before you can just go and automate the process, you've got to really understand and have alignment on the process. Because if you, I mean, the Aspil process is touched by so many different organizations and is that if you don't have a clear, understanding of how that process should work, you're going to be programming some automation that's going to have glitches and then it's probably going to break down the bigger process. So it's really important to do a deep dive on the flow of the process, the flow of the information, the handoffs and all that that go into getting it to an Aspil state. Good. And by the way, amidst the discussion of the timeliness of the Aspil, an audience member commented, same day, exclamation point. So I think that's a target that the industry is shooting for. I'm glad to hear that we're all moving towards that successfully. I'm going to move on to our fourth deep dive around outage mobility. And I want to ask a few questions to our panel in this space as well. And Ken, I'm going to start with you. I think we all know outages are complex and critical. And when you add mobility into the mix with this, all of a sudden, it just gets more complex. So some of the things that you've seen in your work at SDG&E, what are some thoughts on how the utility should be rolling out improvements in outage mobility? And again, people in process, technology and data, obviously there's a very heavy asset component to all of this outage management and outage mobility question. So what are you seeing there at SDG&E and how are you all tackling some of these challenges? Well, there's a lot to unpack, I think, when you're talking about liability, you know, and particularly how utilities are using technology. And you talk about the front end of actually trying to prevent outages or detect outages, right? But then the other part of it is you've got what I would call the response. How do you respond to an outage? How do you engage customers during an outage? I think that's something that's big in certainly in our space. And so maybe I'll focus on the latter part and talk a little bit about initiative net that we launched at SDG&E a few years ago to really, and it goes above just reliability, but it really goes to how are we interfacing with technology and our field crews and our customers. And we launched, I think it was about two or three years ago, it was a new approach really to how we deploy new field technology solutions out in the field. And it's called field service delivery. That's actually FSD is the actual acronym, but it was really focused on taking a more integrated approach and a streamlined approach to how we deploy field technology solutions into our field. And rather than, you know, traditionally we've probably deployed technology in almost like a continuous one-off fashion where you have a new system that needs to be upgraded. So you focus on that system. You bring in the people who know that system and then you either upgrade it or replace it. But really what we did with field service delivery is took a more centralized approach, a more persistent, what I would call a persistent approach, almost like an agile approach as far as implementing technology and made sure that we had a persistent team that was first and foremost made up of experts in the field, getting to that point of getting them involved early, as well as business technology, asset management group, and then IT as well. And also having a persistent change organization. That can actually help manage some of those things where you have pitfalls and making sure training is set up in a timely and robust fashion. So what this team has been doing is they've really been focused on evaluating technology needs in a more holistic and systematic basis. Really focused on, I would say maybe four main things. First thing is making sure we streamline processes before we do any kind of technology deployment. Second thing is really looking at opportunities to consolidate technologies. We have too many systems. If there are opportunities to consolidate those systems, it's going to benefit everyone. And then the other big one is, I would say, is simplifying the field user experience. We know a lot of our field crews, they don't want to spend a lot of time on technology. They want to be doing the physical work. They want to be out there doing their inspections, doing their work. They want an easy as possible field experience. Now that's a challenge in itself. We know that. But the other anchor to the field service delivery is finding a way to give our employees a more common view of the work. So A, don't have to click on as many icons on their iPads. But the other thing is having the ability to see what other work is going on to a given asset. We're an electric and gas company. So it's good to know if you're out there for an electric job, it's good for you to know whether there was any gas work done there recently, or it could have been a different type of electric project. So those are all been the goals of our program. And ultimately, what you're trying to do here for the customer is make our interactions with customers easier. Whether that's visiting our customers less, right? Our customers don't want our field crews out there. They obviously need them when there's an outage. But for any kind of work, unplanned or planned work, they want as few interactions as possible. And when they're out there, they want them actually armed with information so that they actually know the history of the customer and when's the last time the customer has been talked about or touched by the utility. So those are kind of the timeless tenants that we've really done with our field service delivery. Because ultimately, what that's going to do is it's going to improve our ability to respond to outages when we have them, because we're going to have more access to the information. We're going to understand the customer better. We're going to be able to improve the response time to that outage. We commenced this program by deploying a new scheduling and dispatch tool. We started it on a pilot basis. And by the end of this year, we're going to have it on a full scale basis to our electric crews. But really, it's geared towards all those objectives in mind. And we've gotten, you know, I think we can all sit here and we know what the challenge of this type of undertaking. We've got over 1,500 field users. That includes contractors, so we know what a big undertaking this is. But our approach of doing this in more integrated fashion has received some pretty positive reviews so far as far as just getting, making sure that the field is heard early and often. You know, really looking for ways to get them involved in the look and feel of the tool and simplifying their experience. And then ultimately, trying to secure quick wins along the way, right? These technology implementations can take years. So, if you don't have ability to celebrate quick wins and maybe solve some real-time problems along the way, it's hard to gain that acceptance. So, again, everything's a journey here. We still got multiple years as part of this program. We've got other systems. We've got to deploy this out to our gas ops as well as our customer field group. But that's the approach that we've taken to really help maybe booster the overall acceptance and ultimately the integration of the tools. That was a lot, Ken. Thank you. I was keeping some notes here. And of your four goals, and I'll just paraphrase, streamline processes, opportunities to consolidate systems, simplifying the field user technology, and a more common view of the work. On that second one, opportunities to consolidate systems, I'd like to ask our panel where you've seen this maybe successfully, maybe you've experienced it firsthand. And yeah, it was successful, but boy, we had to get over A, B, and C. So, where are some examples of where you've been able, you or your customers have been able to take an opportunity to consolidate some of these systems? And I think we've all seen different examples of this. So, what does that look like from where you all are sitting? So, I can jump in here a bit, Mike. I think I'm going to touch on it a bit later as well. But we're in the process of looking to consolidate the map for DSO, implementing the new OMS, which I'll touch on here in a bit. And really, we're in the thick of it. We're in the middle of the journey. And really, it's looking at the processes. How can we create the efficiencies? And we've taken it through multiple kind of, and then actually, we've taken it through multiple different stages. And so, we've taken a gradual approach as well of doing that testing. Again, I hope it's going to be successful, but we've used a lot of the same goals, some of the same approach that Ken mentioned. So, I'll be able to let you know in 2025 how successful, but it's a journey we're currently under. Okay, good. And full disclosure, I am a SMUD customer. So, I will watch with a high level of interest. I'm a happy SMUD customer. I'll make sure I qualify that. SMUD's awesome. Happy to hear that. Yeah, yeah. Robert, you have something? Yeah, you know, reduction of the tech stack is something that I think everybody's been chasing for a long time. And I've had the pleasure of going in and trying to do, I'll say, inventory data. And what becomes apparent is it's not only systems, it's spreadsheets, it's access databases, all of which hold critical data and replace systems. And look, reduction of the tech stack, a common user interface for an end user, it all makes sense to me. But when it comes to mobility, the problem I have is you'll see, quite frankly, people, let's say the finance side of it, the finance side of the house driving one system that's represented by three letters. And that's not, that's, you know, yes, you reduce the tech stack. Yes, you may get a mobile app. But reality is it's not a mobile app that's fit for purpose for engineering and operations. And so, what I would say is, you know, consolidation of the mobile apps, so the end user doesn't have like, you know, three or four mobile apps that they have to use on their laptop. Yes, please. But consolidation of systems as a whole and not giving people, you know, best of breed for something like mobile. Right now, I just don't feel the industry's there. And so, you could have something that's a technology success, but it's really not going to help you realize those field force automation benefits or achieve any of those good things that we've been talking about on this. And so, what I would say is, you know, it's important. I believe in it financially and technically and from an end use perspective, but tread lightly and figure out what you're going to do. And, you know, back to that, back to that bird by bird is really pick your battles and, you know, do it bit by bit over time. And in five years, you're going to be very pleasantly surprised. But to do everything quickly to save money, yeah, I mean, somebody will be happy with their spreadsheet, but everybody else will be utterly miserable. Right, right. We always like to say the day that Excel goes down is the day the grid goes down because we've become so dependent on those. I think that's changing, but it still holds true. Amber, I want to come back to you in just a second. But first, I just want to read a couple of comments from our audience. One is explaining why change is needed reduces the fear of change, like your job vaporizing. Explaining that the extra efficiencies allow for higher efficiencies and that this is the goal. There will always be more wastage to remove as we build out. I think we can all agree on that. And then similarly, we also have a comment from the audience. And this is interesting and I think important. Having representatives or rather having representative field crew members being part of the development up front is crucial rather than just handing it off to them after it's done. Yeah, I think that gets that real world expertise and inputs as part of any implementation, I think is really important. I think we can all agree on that as well. I am keeping an eye on the clock and we are getting close to the end. But Amber, I did want to come back to you around this consolidation and integration question. What are some of the considerations at SMUD that you all have had to take into account in terms of getting it right when you're implementing these complex systems and integrations and processes? And again, when I read your introduction, the laundry list of systems under your purview is mind boggling. So you're a good person to ask this question. So what are some of those considerations and making sure you get it right? And again, it can be a people process, data technology. It's maybe all of the above. But what are you seeing and experiencing there at SMUD? Sure. So again, I think all organizations right now have a lot of complexities, right? I think earlier, not only do we have the one-off projects, the upgrades that have to happen, operational support, but we're trying to use technology to move the needle. We're doing the same thing at SMUD. And so one thing is we were awarded a GRIP grant. And so as part of that GRIP grant, we have a program called our Connected Clean Power City program. And it's really like six large projects. And one of those large projects is our OMS replacement, right? Currently, we're in a legacy OMS system. So we're looking to a new vendor so we can have a one-platform approach, as I mentioned earlier, for our ADMS, DERMS, and OMS. And again, going back to balancing what are the technology changes and advancements that we're looking for, what functionality changes and advancements do we need to provide? Because we know that customer expectations are changing, right? And this is a heavy lift. We may be a utility, but they're expecting the Google, the Facebook, Amazon-type services, right? And we don't have those type of budgets. And so again, the team takes a look at it. They're stepping back. They're looking at people, process, technology. OMS is that lifeline to our organization because it is customer-facing. So in this project alone, there's 12 interfaces that we're monitoring closely, establishing, some being GIS, SAP, and our outage map. And again, I'm going to go back to something I said a bit earlier. It's important to know clearly what the project is and what isn't it. What are we going to be delivering on? What is that clear expectation? Because with every large initiative, there's always that scope creep, right? Or misunderstanding of a requirement. And somebody may not get the expected results they anticipated. So communication, the change management, having project oversight, a very strong project oversight that not only is tracking what is being done by SMUD, but also by our SI or external vendors. And then I'm going to go back to documentation, clear documentation, clear test cases, really making sure it's clear on what does success look like. And again, all of this that we've talked about today is going to be done without wonderful SMEs, wonderful staff, and folks that truly care about the customer day in and day out and want to deliver on that. And so we have all of these efforts underway. And I think it's about accountability, strong leadership, and also as we're facing issues, raise those issues, have those conversations, talk about them. Because with any technology deployment, it would be great to share that hey, we're going to deploy no issues, right? If somebody has had that, I want to talk with them, right? Because there's always those unexpected that you have to work through. So I think there's a lot of opportunities. Again, multiple layers of projects. So you have to make sure that one project is talking to the other, right? Because they are sharing resources. They may have touch points, right? So having that true visibility is also going to make your life a bit easier. Yeah, that's a lot. And I'm sure that as you get deeper into your implementation, you'll have a lot more stories to share. Boy, that's a big one that you're tackling, the ADMS, DERMS, and OMS on a single platform. That's interesting. So we may want to hear more about that later. Like I said, I am keeping an eye on the clock. We're about at the end of the line for today's session. And PJ, if you want to move to the next slide, I want to kind of close by thanking you for your time. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. We know that you have a choice in how you're going to spend your day. And we love that you chose to spend some time with us today. So thanks so much. You can see if you have questions or need more information, you can see the email address there on the screen. Please feel free to reach out. And I'll just wrap by saying thanks, everybody. We'll hope to see you again real soon. And it's Thursday, so it's getting close to the weekend. So I'll say hope everybody has a great weekend. Take care. Thank you, Mike. Thanks, Mike. And I want to let the audience know we'll be sending you a survey. Please give us your feedback so we can continue to provide valuable content like today. Thank you so much. Panelists, this was fantastic. From everyone here at Energy Central, thank you so much for joining. We look forward to seeing you on a future Power Session. And this does conclude today's presentation. Thank you.