Overhauling a power utility company's approach to field operations

A major Canadian utility uses real-time data to improve daily operations, risk management, and response times during natural disasters and weather events.

Utility Company

Our client is a Canadian utility company. They’ve allowed us to share their story on the condition of anonymity.

generating stations

75,000 km

power lines

120

projects

Challenge

Faced with constant risk of catastrophic earthquakes and regular service disruptions caused by wind and rain events, a Canadian power utility needed to overhaul its approach to field operations.

Specifically, to reduce cost of response and risk to people, it needed to improve how it evaluated and prioritized damage assessments and related response activities.

Existing procedures for incident response and daily operations relied heavily on manual processes, causing time delays, data gaps, and uncertainty around critical decisions.

Miscommunication and delay: Incident response priorities and assignments were documented manually and communicated via phone, email, and radio.
Long administrative delays: Field assessments of infrastructure were recorded on paper, phoned, or emailed to the Emergency Coordination Center, then digitized.
Incomplete information: Situation reports generated for executives and decision-makers didn’t include the most current data due to delays in communication, review, and data entry.
Limited availability: Site-specific process and safety checklists were maintained in documents, and generally not available in the field during response.
Software solutions rarely used: Upper management preferred not to deploy emergency-specific software that would increase training requirements and be unfamiliar, given use only during critical events.

Solution

The utility implemented Lightship to automate standard procedures, facilitate information capture and sharing, and assign and manage priorities, for both day-to-day and critical incident activities.

Automate the creation of tasks, assignments, and notifications based on form data, and data from connected seismic and weather systems and sensors.
Digitally record information in the field (using phones, tablets, or other personal devices) and instantly share with all authorized individuals.
Remind field crews of safe procedures and site-specific considerations at the start of any task.
Monitor task backlog and real-time activity for each division and team with a common operating picture.
Quickly view and summarize up-to-date, real-time information for executive review, in order to support timely, insightful decisions.

Workflow for emergency response incident

⬤ Lightship automation

⬤ Completed by workers

Results

Lightship transformed the way the utility captured, visualized, shared, and applied information, enabling faster, lower-risk decisions during incidents and daily work.
Individual workers are now safer, with automated work, communications, and reminders of site-specific considerations. Safe work practices are now incorporated directly into tasks and procedures.

100%

of automatically-generated tasks included available site-specific plans, hazards, and safety reminders for workers.

10x faster

to summarize and share information after it is originally captured in the field.

Real-time visualization

of the entire operation shows crew locations and progress on assigned work, allowing supervisors to oversee and direct activities.

One solution

for both daily operations and emergency response, eliminating license and training costs for dedicated EM software.

Transform the way you get work done.

Automate complex work, with seamless hand-off between people and automated processes across every area of your business: field, facility, and office.

Connect your enterprise systems, eliminate legacy tech, and fill gaps—with full oversight and monitoring.