Esri At Distributech 2020 - Solutions and Partners!
On January 28, 2020 over 13,500 utility professionals gathered in San Antonio TX for the annual Distributech conference to learn about the latest innovations in the electric utility industry. This year Distributech was huge and the action never let up.
The Esri booth flooded each day with visitors learning ways to geo-enable the modern utility – using the complete ArcGIS platform to accomplish digital transformation. Two themes rose to the top – Grid Modernization and Field Mobility.
Visitors enjoyed demonstrations in the following areas: Asset management, Safety first, Customer engagement, Grid Mod, Network management, Analytics, Field operations, Innovation, Real-time/IoT, and Emergency management.
The demonstration theater seemed to run almost non-stop drawing crowds and often filling the adjacent isle addressing such topics as:
- Esri - Maps and Data for Utilities, ArcGIS Utility Network, Seeing your Business Holistically and in Real-Time, Enabling your Field Workforce with Apps, Leveraging drone Imagery for Mapping Inspection, Utility of the Future
- SAP/Critigen – Integration of Spatial Data using SAP HANA and ArcGIS
- UDC – Moving Utilities from a Reactive to Proactive Reliability Approach, Utility Network Migration – Getting Down to the Details
- EPOCH Solutions – EpochField: Field Work Management Made Simple
- DataCapable – How Dominion has Transformed Safety and Reliability, How Central Hudson Gas and Electric has Transformed Safety and Reliability with a New Platform
- 3GIS – Avoiding Fiber Deployment Roadblocks, Accelerating Speed to Activation
- Critigen – EAM, ADMS, OMS, Design, Esri’s Utility Network, Mobility, What should we do first?
Business Partners Bring Advanced Solutions
Esri had a very large business partner presence. Critegen, Cyclomedia, DataCapable, EOS Positioning Systems, Epoch Solutions, SAP, UDC, and 3GIS all presented solutions in the Esri booth. In total, 44 Esri business partners exhibited this year demonstrating the heightened interest in real-world solutions. Numerous companies expressed a desire to form new partner relationships to leverage with wide-spread adoption of ArcGIS in utilities worldwide.
A formal press release announced an exciting new partnership. Electric, gas, and water utilities will now be able to leverage both ArcGIS Utility Networks and the Open Systems International, Inc.(OSI) monarch operational technology (OT) platform as they become more tightly integrated.
"Many of our utility customers are adopting new Esri technology, such as ArcGIS Utility Network Management, which provides advanced network modeling capability," said Bahman Hoveida, president and CEO of OSI. "We are very excited about our partnership with Esri, as it will enable us to provide the best technical solutions to our joint customers, leveraging the latest functionality ArcGIS Utility Network Management provides."
Presentations
Esri’s Bill Meehan presented to an engaged audience on why Field Mobility is more than just giving maps to field workers! Bill discussed ways to improve entire workflows with accurate data, and awareness/ access for everyone. Leading utilities are using ArcGIS mobile solutions to improve KPIs in every corner of the business.
Remi Myers shared about Analyzing Lightning Events to Improve Electric System Reliability. Remi hit on some very popular themes of Network Management, Big Data, and Analytics. He processed over 600,000 lightning strike data points in a live demo that identified broken grounds on a utility’s transmission system – impressive!
Make Plans to Join Esri Next Year
Make plans to join us next year when Distributech will return to sunny San Diego on February, 9-11, 2021.
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