One of the most important jobs for many state, local and municipal governments involves the distribution of public utilities, which can include power, water, gas and other services necessary to 21st century life. However, the distribution of utilities is becoming an increasingly difficult and complex mission – with public utilities facing reductions in workforce and budget, aging infrastructures and demands for green and sustainable initiatives.
In this environment, it’s essential that public utilities find and exploit any opportunity to increase their effectiveness and efficiency. And one of the ways they’re becoming more efficient is through the use of new technologies to design and plan utility distribution.
New digital design and modeling technologies are making it possible to decrease the time and cost needed to design the network that will distribute essential utilities and services to every citizen. This efficiency is generated from the increased automation and elimination of manual processes that are a result of integrating multiple data sets and systems.
In a recent post on the GovDesignHub, my associate, Caron Beesley, shared a case study that showed these new technologies at work.
In her article, she discussed a test of these technologies done by Nashville Electric Service, one of the 12 largest public electric utilities in the nation, with Spatial Business Systems (SBS), a provider of software and service solutions that help its clients leverage the power of location-based data. The results of that test were both extraordinary and very telling.
The test resulted in:
- 20 percent efficiency improvements during design
- 8-16 percent productivity gains and a drop in drafting times
- Approximately a 35 percent decrease in resource planning times
SBS and DLT recently collaborated on a Webinar that showed one these new technology solutions in action – Automated Utility Design. Here is the video of the Webinar, which details some of the ways in which the solution can benefit public utilities, and provides a full demonstration of the solution at work:
