SAMsix & Sigma Seven Join Con Edison to Expedite Restoring Customers After Storms
(PRWEB) October 23, 2013 -- Geospatial tools specialist SAMsix along with their UK based field technology partner Sigma Seven were chosen by Con Edison to develop its storm outage restoration processes.
Con Edison, which serves 9 million New Yorkers in New York City and Westchester County, chose the two companies to deliver an asset based field system following several utility and governmental reviews of Super Storm Sandy. Every review highlighted the need to improve damage assessment.
SAMsix (http://www.samsix.com) and Sigma Seven (http://www.sigmaseven.com) have jointly developed a new Emergency Management Suite (EMS) which improves the accuracy and timely delivery of damage assessment from field assessors during storm events, optimizing resourcing levels and restoration time estimation.
SAMsix's Steve McMaster said: "Developing the Emergency Management Suite in partnership with Con Edison and Sigma Seven has allowed us to provide a product based on cutting edge field-device technology that is an exact fit for the needs of utilities in both emergency event scenarios and regularly scheduled inspections. We are proud to help Con Edison speed the process of restoring power to their customers."
Sigma Seven's Managing Director Paul Reid added: "Con Edison has shown great desire to equip their field assessors with a damage assessment solution before the next storm season begins, and we feel honored to be awarded this contract with such a prestigious US Utility as we grow our presence in North America. We see this as a great example of how GeoField can significantly improve efficiencies within field operations and are very happy to team up with SAMsix in this delivery."
When a storm impacts a utility system, personnel must be sent to the damage sites to determine the extent of the damage and the materials needed, and report this information back to the storm control center before repairs crews are dispatched. Historically, this has been difficult in widespread storms, often accomplished with paper and pen in the field and manual entry into storm center systems at an office. Having accurate and timely damage assessment information after storms have passed is essential in determining how many crews are needed, the types of crews needed, as well as estimating when customers' power will be restored.
With the new Emergency Management Suite, Con Edison will be able to carry out these activities more rapidly and accurately as crucial information will be automatically entered into their storm management system back at base.
The system allows on-site assessors to "collect and go" without hours of training, and it can be easily adopted by field workers with no knowledge of a community. The EMS was designed with tablet-friendly drop-down menus, and allows incident notes and damage photos to be quickly taken at the scene of the damage. Once information is collected, nearby asset information is automatically attached along with the position of the assessor, and the package is sent electronically to Con Edison's systems where it is available for review in real-time. If network or cell coverage is affected by the storm, information is queued on the tablet until a network is detected.
Con Edison's asset maps and database are loaded securely onto tablet devices powered by Sigma Seven's GeoField and are available to field assessors with or without a network connection, allowing field assessors to assess any location in the entire Con Edison utility network without having to prepare the device in advance of a site visit.
The EMS solution marries the expertise of SAMsix and their relationship with Con Edison as a spatial system supplier with the power and flexibility of Sigma Seven's GeoField software.
Con Edison is a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc. [NYSE: ED], one of the nation’s largest investor-owned energy companies, with approximately $12 billion in annual revenues and $42 billion in assets. The utility provides electric, gas and steam service to more than three million customers in New York City and Westchester County, New York. For additional financial, operations and customer service information, visit us on the Web at http://www.conEd.com, at our green site, http://www.coned.com/thepowerofgreen, or find us on Facebook at Power of Green.
SAMsix is a New York based company originally founded in 2000 to support software products abandoned by their developers. Since that time, its business has evolved through strong customer relationships and opportunities to develop new solutions for these older products. Today, SAMsix offers a portfolio of innovative and economical software solutions for gas and electric utilities and municipalities. It specializes in integrating and analyzing data from many independent sources and providing geospatial and visualization tools to improve customer service and operational management. They deliver high security solutions in unbeatable turn-around times. Please visit our website at http://www.samsix.com.
Sigma Seven was formed in Edinburgh in 2000 by software developers anticipating the market for location-aware applications and tablet computers. The team developed the GeoField product suite which rapidly became the number one platform for mobile, map-based data management solutions for UK Utility companies. They are pioneers of tablet software solutions and have been at the forefront of mobile systems development for over ten years. The team has continued to develop Sigma Seven into one of the leading innovators in the field of mobile mapping and workflow across all markets. They are now recognized as independent and experienced experts in mobile technology. Sigma Seven is proud of their unrivaled service reputation, built on years of consistent delivery, attention to detail and reliability. Their popular and innovative products are renowned as being the best in their class. Please visit their website at http://www.sigmaseven.com.
Cora Smaldone, Samsix LLC, http://www.samsix.com, +1 888-397-6237 1, [email protected]
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