Our utility client

One of the largest gas and electric utilities in the United States, serving 10 million customers across multiple states through its utility companies

The challenge

Increased customer satisfaction and improved outage response were among this utility’s targeted business goals for its multi-state operations. The need to streamline processes and workflows to support quicker workforce mobilization was critical to helping meet these objectives while leveraging the additional operational value of mobile enablement. 

This large U.S. utility partnered with CGI to deploy the CGI OpenGrid Workforce and OpenGrid Field solutions across the organization to address several goals they wanted to achieve through the implementation:

  • Increase customer loyalty and satisfaction levels
  • Improve the effectiveness and speed of restoration efforts
  • Get resources, equipment, and parts to the outage site faster
  • Boost the frequency of communications to customers with timely and accurate information

The solution

CGI and the utility jointly designed a solution and deployment strategy to address business requirements, leverage the CGI OpenGrid solutions’ advanced configuration flexibility, and develop an effective rollout scheme for each of its operating subsidiaries. The project was delivered successfully, supporting a variety of operational workgroups across their family of utilities:

  • Distribution System Operations
  • Construction and Maintenance
  • Transmission and Substation
  • Field and Meter Services

The integration

CGI supported the integration of these new solutions to the utility’s enterprise system using the CGI OpenGrid Workforce XML API and supplemented by training its technical resources to support their interface development efforts. Integrated systems included:

  • Payroll and Human Resources
  • Work Management
  • Customer information
  • Outage Management
  • Crew call-out
  • Timesheets
  • High-volume call answering
  • Asset Management
  • Geospatial information
  • Mobile mapping

The results

The CGI OpenGrid solutions delivered successful automation of the following key processes:

  • Enterprise dispatch, scheduling, and resource allocation – Managing real-time scheduling, dispatching, and tracking various work order types through their entire life cycle – from receipt/creation of an order to the final closure of the work.
  • Field automation – Delivering mobility to field crews with simplified work completion tools and automated, real-time reporting to back-office operations.
  • Mobile geospatial mapping – Enabling the display of GIS facilities data, maps, records, and performing related searching, querying, and analysis.
  • Street-level routing – Providing routing, driving instructions, and travel times for crews to simplify the planning and sequencing of their work.
  • Global Positioning System (GPS) – Utilizing GPS data to continuously update crew locations on maps for dispatch consoles and mobile data terminals.

7,000 mobiles were deployed using CGI technology to support the essential energy delivery activities of technicians and supervisors in the field.

Additional value delivered:

  • Consistent processes, economies of scale, and global support.
  • Transparent dispatching of current and emergency work across various services.
  • Integration of work monitoring for effective cross-service management of work to complete, improved material forecasting and accurate financial reports.
  • Shared platform for dispatching, scheduling and mobile units to ensure optimized use of resources across all business units.

The CGI OpenGrid Workforce and OpenGrid Field solutions extend beyond managing field construction crews responding to outage tickets – it also includes emergency responders, meter technicians, and transmission and substation workers. With 7,000 mobiles used daily to support this utility’s workforce and field operations, this represents one of the largest mobile workforce management deployments in the U.S. 

About CGI

Founded in 1976, CGI is among the largest IT and business consulting services firms in the world.

We are insights-driven and outcomes-based to help accelerate returns on your investments.  Across hundreds of locations worldwide, we provide comprehensive, scalable and sustainable IT and business consulting services that are informed globally and delivered locally.