Latest Contributions by BillMeehan

Here is your chance to hear Esri employees from all different departments speak about their views and experiences building, selling, deploying, and creating apps for ArcGIS Utility Network. Should be fun. Get your questions ready, but register now at:  https://www.esri.com/en-us/lg/industry/electric-and-gas/mapping-the-energy-movement-webinar-series?adumkts=social&utm_source=social&aduc=social&adum=external&adusf=linkedin&sf_id=7015x000000aYlKAAU&aduca=mi_employee_advocacy_hootsuite_amplify_soc_ex&adut=a3c877a7-d97f-4765-b5f5-1125a4cb1044 ... View more

How Many Junk Drawers Do You Have? Bill Meehan, Esri I just recently moved into my newly built house. As empty nesters, we realized we might as well downsize. So we opted for a tidy 1200 square foot single-story house. However, one of the things we wanted was a big kitchen with lots of cabinet space. The problem was after about a month in our new home, we ended up with three junk drawers. So whenever we discover something we can’t figure out where it should be stored, we put it into one of the junk drawers. Storage was easy, retrieval, not so much. They are loaded with pens, birthday candles, car keys from cars that have long since been crushed, pencils, and phone chargers, some new, some obsolete.   Photo Courtesy of Cindy Clausen, Esri How many do you have? I have created a digital version of the junk drawer. Except I don’t have three digital junk drawers. I have hundreds, maybe thousands, clogging up my hard drive. The simple solution is to store these junk file drawers in the cloud. Yet, storage is not the problem. Just like my kitchen junk drawers, retrieval is. The other problem is duplication. I bet I have buried a dozen double-A batteries in at least two of my junk drawers. However, instead of looking for them, I buy another batch of batteries. I will use the two I need and store the rest of the package in one of the junk drawers. I have the same problem with my digital junk drawer. Imagery Ends Up in the Digital Junk Drawer Utilities are actively supporting many of their workflows with imagery. Examples include satellite, drones, orthophotos, 3D meshes, video, Lidar, and Phodar. In fact, imagery supports many utilities’ digital twin initiatives. The workflows for this imagery supplement the traditional GIS tasks. Capturing high-resolution photos with drones provides stunning detail of damaged insulators, leaking bushings, and any flaws that helicopter or ground patrols would be hard to find. Utilities leverage pre- and post-storm imagery to facilitate power restoration or analyze landslides and fire damage. Imagery often forms the backbone for vegetation management. Utilities add this data to the traditional GIS layers for spectacular analysis. So, what’s the problem? The imagery data often ends up in the junk drawer. Imagery exists in so many forms. Images cover overlapping areas. Once an image is created, it becomes out of date quickly. Utilities sometimes store the image files on hard drives, DVDs, in files in the cloud, on file servers, you name it. Image Management to the Rescue The junk drawer situation with imagery is relatively new due to an explosion of image creation, variety, and time dependency of the images. The solution to my junk drawer problem is to organize all that junk and throw away duplicate and obsolete stuff (like chargers with connectors that have long been replaced). Then pick one drawer and put only what is important in it. That’s what ArcGIS Image Server does with imagery. It is a full system for imagery. It can be implemented on-premise or in the cloud. It includes reality capture, dynamic observations, storage, retrieval, and analysis. It is part of ArcGIS Enterprise, the basis for nearly every utility’s GIS today. A utility with any decent-sized GIS has Enterprise. ArcGIS Image Server provides a distributed computing and storage system that powers the analytical processing and serving of large collections of imagery, elevation data, rasters, and other remotely sensed data. It manages virtually any imagery a utility has today and will likely need in the future. Here’s the beauty of it, like my junk draw problem, where retrieval is the big issue. ArcGIS Image Server lets users select an area it needs. Then, the image service collects all the images, rasters, orthophotos, and Lidar and shows the users what is contained within the area of interest. It even shows specific images containing specified point locations and assets, like the details of a specific insulator. No more searching through file systems, or worse, rummaging through cardboard boxes of poorly labeled DVDs, looking for the right image to solve my problem. The Real Bonus ArcGIS Image Server allows you to assemble, process, analyze, and manage large collections of overlapping, multiresolution imagery and raster data from different sensors, sources, and periods. That’s right. You can piece together all that stuff and perform analysis, like using tools such as machine learning to see patterns you would never be able to figure out, like where little trees can cause big problems. And get this. You can publish your analysis results to web apps. desktops, and mobile devices. So you don’t have to keep this great analysis to yourself. Instead, you can share it with everyone who needs it. Dump the Junk Drawer GIS revolutionized the management of utility maps, automated scores of utility workflows, and created a huge variety of analytics. However, until enterprise GIS became common, utility mapping was a mess. Utilities created all kinds of maps, many duplicated, inconsistent, and outdated. Today, GIS again allows utilities to clean up their imagery problem with tools such as ArcGIS Image Server. For more information on how utilities can use the power of GIS, click here. ... View more

Check out the blog I wrote with Robert Krisher on the ArcGIS Utility Network and Enterprise. https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/utility-network/electric-gas/utility-enterprise-gis/ ... View more

Check out @Pat Hohl's reading list for ArcGIS Utility Network Network https://www.esri.com/en-us/industries/blog/articles/an-arcgis-utility-network-reading-list-electric-utilities/. ... View more

Attached is the 2022 IMGIS Industry Flyer for your use. This provides you with sessions to attend tailored especially for the electric industry. Please come to the booth, visit the partners, and network with your peers! It's going to be unforgettable  ... View more

Please connect with Clearion at IMGIS. Clearion is a leader in end-to-end technology solutions designed to help companies radically transform their work environments, strengthen communication among workgroups, and serve their customers more effectively. And they are an Esri Gold Partner!    ... View more

When I visit with senior executives from the power industry, I like to ask three questions. “What’s your biggest problem?” “What are you doing about it?” “How do you know that what you are doing is really solving your biggest problems?” I had a chance to meet with a senior executive from a large power company. I asked her the simple question. “What’s your biggest problem?” She replied without hesitation, “customer satisfaction.” She said that for the last several years their company was ranked lowest in customer satisfaction compared with neighboring utilities. The board was furious and she was told to fix it. I then asked her,” what are you doing about it?” She rattled off a couple of initiatives, like sending the call center employees to sensitivity training, stepping up the smart meter roll-out, and increasing tree trimming to improve reliability. I asked my follow-up question: “How do you know that what you are doing is really solving your customer satisfaction problem?  She said, “I hope so.” I hope so? Her job depended on it. She really had no idea whether any of those initiatives would improve the way customers viewed her company. I asked her if she had thought about using her GIS to map the results of customer satisfaction surveys? She said, “no, and why would I?” I gave her three reasons. First, by mapping the results of customer satisfaction surveys she would find out where people are most unhappy. Second, she could take all kinds of historic data and combine it with customer satisfaction data to gain insight into why customers are unhappy. By the way, this is using one of GIS’s more powerful tools – spatial analysis. This would show where tree trimming had occurred. It would show areas of high bill complaints. It would show poor reliability. It could even correlate satisfaction with demographic data. And finally, once she knows where and why customers are not satisfied, she could craft a solution that focuses on the areas where people are most unhappy. Simple, elegant, and focused. GIS is great for modeling utility assets. But it is also about discovery. Discovering something brand new. Gaining new insights about your customers – their likes, dislikes, wants, and needs. And where they differ. Using the power of GIS’s spatial analysis, utilities can take a more strategic approach to their business. Then, the next time I ask the senior executive if the solution he or she poses will solve the big problem, the answer will not be, “I hope so.” The answer, based on GIS, will be, “I know so.” ... View more

Join us next week, October 15th for a webinar on how ArcGIS can sharpen customer engagement.  We tend to think of GIS in terms of assets, but with the rich data about customers, we can learn a lot more about customer trends and behaviors - sign up for the free webinar at https://www.esri.com/en-us/landing-page/industry/electric-and-gas/2019/customer-experience-webinar-landing-page?adumkts=marketing&aduse=utilities&aduin=electric_gas&aduc=email&adum=drip&utm_Source=email&aduca=cra_eandg_community&aduco=email2_customer_engagement_webinar&adut=631312_customer_engagement_webinar&adulb=multiple&adusn=multiple&aduat=email&adupt=community&sf_id=701f2000000iDCkAAM&aducp=simple_body_cta Bill ##esrielectric ... View more

I like things simple. Check this out: https://www.energycentral.com/o/esri/forget-about-operability ... View more

Network Management News for Utilities and Telecommunication Companies We have exciting news to share. New ArcGIS platform release: On January 18, Esri released ArcGIS Enterprise 10.6 and ArcGIS Pro 2.1, representing a significant step forward in the ArcGIS platform, especially for utilities. Read about the new features here. New ArcGIS extension for utilities: An integral part of the ArcGIS 10.6 platform is the new ArcGIS Utility Network Management extension. We call this technology, simply, the utility network, and it represents the future of network management. We showcased the power of this new extension at DistribuTECH 2018. Upcoming utility release for ArcMap: This summer we will release ArcGIS 10.6.1. This release will also include the next desktop utility release for ArcMap and the geometric network, and it will be supported until January 2024. This gives you plenty of time to plan and prepare for your migration to the utility network. The Utility Network: A Quantum Leap in Network Management The utility network launches a brand-new way for you to manage utility and telecom data. You can: Share your network model with real-time systems Create schematic diagrams automatically and make them accessible in the platform Visualize your network assets in 3D Build non-spatial network connectivity Model devices inside other devices Edit your data with ArcGIS Pro, the most modern GIS desktop software available Create attribute rules and enforce rich business logic to prevent errors Support annotation across the platform Author ArcGIS Pro projects and share them using your ArcGIS portal Esri will continue to expand the capabilities of the utility network over the next months and years. In the spring, Esri will offer data migration tools to help you move to the new utility network. Our summer release of the utility network will include: Attribute rule enhancements Client-side evaluation of rules SDK developer enhancements We have many other features coming in later releases including: Mobile geodatabase support Partial posting Custom validation tools A telecom model that includes fiber cables Domains dependent on the value of other fields Support for dimensioning Better data export ability, including support for the IEC standard Common Information Model (CIM) Support for disconnected editing Continued Support for ArcMap and the Geometric Network To give you time to prepare for a migration to the new utility network, we will continue to support ArcMap and the geometric network, including a new release this summer. In 2015, we created a special utility and telecom release, 10.2.1, which we promised to support until June 2021. Once on this release, you did not have to upgrade your desktop technology. You only had to install utility patches as they become available. This made keeping up with the latest technology simple and easy. However, you have made requests related to security and platform support that we cannot accommodate with the simple patch process. So, we are providing another option. In the summer, you can upgrade to our 10.6.1 release, which will continue to support ArcMap and the geometric network. This is not a migration—it is a straightforward upgrade, similar to the patches you’ve already been installing. This release will allow us to offer necessary security and platform improvements. It will also be supported until January 2024, giving you more than two years of additional support with these familiar tools. In addition, we are working closely with Schneider Electric, who will be certifying ArcFM on ArcGIS 10.6.1. We will continue to offer patches to both the 10.2.1 utility release and the 10.6.1 utility release. The Road Ahead The road ahead for network management is the utility network. We have updated the Road Ahead for Network Management white paper. We have posted our vision for the utility network on the ArcGIS blog. We have also posted new blogs with information specifically for electric and gas Our partners have also been preparing to offer their solutions as enhancements to the utility network. We urge you to talk to them about their plans and how their solutions will further enrich the utility network. We look forward to your feedback. If you have questions or concerns please reach out to your account manager. They will bring the right resources to you. Stay tuned for more updates on our exciting new technology. ... View more

   I recently read a blog about GIS in which the author used the term “broken record." The term dates back to the days when people made phonograph records (remember?) out of a breakable material. A crack caused the phonograph needle to get stuck in a groove. That part of the song repeated over and over. I have also been guilty of speaking like a broken record. I have said and written many times that a modern GIS is a platform for transformation. So here goes again.    Some utilities still believe that a GIS is an application to make utility maps better and faster. Maps just like the old paper maps. That’s good and bad news. The good news is that GIS has modernized the use of maps at utilities. The bad news is, all too often, utilities continue to focus on the physical aspect of the map. The paper map. They focus on the look and feel. How to manage white space. What information to include on the map. What scale and size of the map. Sure, we often create pdf versions of the map, but they are, after all, electronic versions of paper maps.    Repeating myself. GIS is a platform, not a just a map making machine. According to Phil Simon in his seminal book, The Age of the Platform, a platform “allows people to reach and connect with one another and obtain information.” This simple notion is transformational. A GIS or location platform simplifies the sharing of information in a spatial context.    I used to work for a power company for years. I know that the simple sharing of up to date network information can be a challenge. Not having current and accurate data in the office and in the hands of field works has implications. Lost productivity. Longer restoration times. Safety issues. Violations of regulations. The ArcGIS platform is like the modern social media platforms. Where communication and sharing of information are immediate. Repeating myself again, the platform is not so much about the look and feel of a paper map. Instead, the value is its ability to access information, to create awareness of what and where something is happening and to analyze what might happen – all in real-time.    Speaking of real-time. The new platform has the capability of consuming all kinds of real-time data from SCADA, AMI and ADMS systems to vehicle location data to social media platforms.    At DistribuTECH 2018 in San Antonio, Esri will be showcasing its latest release, ArcGIS10.6. It is a true location platform. The new release enhances its already industry-leading technology. It adds new tools for greater spatial and big data analysis. It continues with its world-class image management. Esri will be showcasing its next generation of utility network management. The platform facilitates communication, collaboration, and coordination of activities, assets, and workers. Just like author Simon describes.    Esri is the leader in network management for utilities with its database-driven connectivity model. Since the platform is services based, network functionality is across all platforms. It is not just available on the desktop. Esri has done this while keeping geographic based techniques.  Users have relied on these techniques for years. Esri has added 3-D network capability, detailed equipment modeling, containment, structural attachment, built-in schematic diagrams and much more.    Esri has relied on its utility partners for years to build domain specific applications on its industry-leading platform. This will continue in earnest with the new Esri release. For example, Schneider Electric will be showcasing its new ArcFM11 and Designer11 products they built on the ArcGIS 10.6 technology. Esri will be also be hosting twelve partners directly in its booth.    It’s still worth repeating and repeating (perhaps like a broken record, if anyone still remembers what that phrase means anymore.) A modern GIS is a platform for transforming how utilities work.    Come to Esri’s booth 2525 and witness what a complete GIS platform really looks like and how it can transform your business. ... View more