28 April 2008, 6:39pm
Fort Collins, CO --DTE Energy Company (DTE) is in production with Designer, a GIS-based design solution from Telvent Miner & Miner (TM&M). The implementation of Designer, which includes embedded ArcFM™ tools for asset and facilities management, will assist DTE in managing the design process for delivering electric and gas service to their customers.
DTE Energy went into production with Designer and ArcFM in April 2007. The goal now is to expand their training and use of a centralized asset management model throughout the distribution side of the organization to improve overall customer support and continue to drive down costs. DTE Energy (NYSE:DTE) is a Detroit-based diversified energy company involved in the development and management of energy-related businesses and services nationwide. Its operating units include Detroit Edison, an electric utility serving 2.2 million customers in Southeastern Michigan, MichCon, a natural gas utility serving 1.3 million customers in Michigan and other non-utility, energy businesses focused on power and industrial projects, coal and gas midstream, unconventional gas production and energy trading. The Designer implementation consolidated DTE’s electric and gas design systems and provides a sustainable platform for the use of geospatial information throughout the entire corporation. The multi-year, multi-phase implementation was part of DTE’s overall corporate-wide information technology (IT) standardization initiative. Designer is a key component in the ESRI-based GIS providing a graphic design framework to improve data management, streamline business processes, and provide improved access to spatial and tabular information. One of the business goals for this transformation was to automate the unitization of costs incurred when making capital modifications to the gas and electric distribution systems. One of the key focus areas to address this goal was the facility and asset management space. DTE Energy wanted a solution that was dynamic enough to grow and adapt with their changing needs, but still provided a way to model their existing workflows. They also wanted an out-of-the-box solution that they could implement with their vendor’s support. Designer met those needs by replacing the legacy applications with a single, integrated process and will automate the generation of cost estimates and bills of materials with integration to IBM’s Maximo WMS. The implementation of Designer also ensures a single point of entry into the engineering database of record (the GIS), thereby eliminating redundant efforts and data throughout the project life-cycle. Through the integration with Maximo, the Designer project will deliver a system that supports an end-to-end design process. “Designer provides us with a streamlined information process to create and manage assets from the field through to our Engineering, Operations and Accounting departments respectively,” said Jim DeKimpe, Director, Common Process Governance, DTE Energy. “We are looking forward to broadening our relationship with Telvent Miner & Miner to continue providing our customers with safe, reliable energy at the lowest possible cost.”
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Each month we select a hot topic and a leading figure in the industry to write about it.What message are we sending to senior level decision makers about the importance and value of Spatial Data Infrastructure - SDI - if we keep misrepresenting what SDI is or is all about?
In previous editorials in this magazine I have touched on various SDI issues, especially now that the pan-European SDI has achieved a legally mandated status within the European Union's 27 Member States. Yet I fear that the Geographic Information community - or communities, for there are many - continue to… More…
Roger Longhorn