“Their process involved driving the circuit, locating the outage, plotting it in one software, sending it back to GIS, then updating it in CADS, and so on,” says Walters. “They’re a long-standing partner for utility vegetation management, so they were already using ResourceKeeper for veg management but not for storm response. Instead, their struggle was with an in-house built and supported collection software. These separate processes and software platforms were slowing their storm response down because they couldn’t do all the workflows they needed to through it. So, we talked about a single-source solution, a hub, if you will, that could lead to better efficiency. The rest, as they say, is history.”
A SaaS Solution for Storm Work
Walters and others on the DRG team introduced the utility to ResourceKeeper’s storm work capabilities within its paperless suite of tools.
“Every utility has a protocol about what they deploy when there’s a storm event,” said Darik Warnke, manager of sales and narketing for DRG Utility Vegetation Management (UVM). “They use various software solutions to pull the information they’re collecting, whether that means downed lines, uprooted trees about to fall on the lines, live lines on the ground and the like. With ResourceKeeper, utilities can track, manage, assign and locate all the events and the issues they need to address from a storm perspective. It’s a technology-based solution with a mobile app designed for real-time data collection. For utilities, it can help support operations, guide management decisions and protect their investments. Plus, it can be scaled to any utility’s unique organizational structure and specifications.”
Here’s how it works: The utility quickly and easily sends information through ResourceKeeper, dispatching storm work to tree crews, foresters or whoever needs it. Field personnel complete their tasks using the mobile app. Then the software automatically sends that information back to the outage management system (OMS) where it’s marked as complete before continuing through the rest of the utility’s workflow.