Kansas City Power & Light isexpanding its suite of Intergraph field automation tools with a new application for field design sketch. The new technology will enable KCP&L to capture intelligent design information in the field and incorporate it into critical back-office systems like Intergraph's infrastructure management and workforce management solutions. The tool will assist KCP&L crews in a multitude of daily field activities including restoration follow-up, service orders, small design jobs, maintenance orders and others.
The new field design sketch tool is pre-integrated into Intergraph's unified
field automation suite. The integrated suite incorporates field engineering
applications, outage management and mobile workforce management technology for scheduled work and trouble work into a single mobile application for optimal functionality and cost savings. This solution uses wireless technology to allow real-time connection and updates, and in times when a signal is not available, a store and forward capability allows updates to be queued until connection is re-established. In addition to the field design
sketch tool, future functionality will include field inspection, vegetation
management and damage assessment.
"As a user of Intergraph's Automated Mapping/Facilities Management
(AM/FM/GIS) solutions for utilities for the past several years, we look
forward to obtaining the added benefits of the new field design sketch
tool," said Ed Hedges, project manager at KCP&L. "By working closely with Intergraph, we continue to expand the types of work that can be accomplished with the Intergraph geographic information system (GIS) tools, leading to significant impacts on day-to-day productivity and customer satisfaction."
"Our vision for utilities field automation technology has always been to
empower crews to complete as many activities as possible from a single
application in their vehicles, seamlessly exchanging data with the back
office and reducing unnecessary travel and lag time," said Jay Stinson, vice
president of utilities & communications at Intergraph. "KCP&L is a prime
example of a technology-savvy utility that has embraced this comprehensive
set of tools to cost-effectively enhance business operations and customer
service. Intergraph will continue to work with KCP&L and other progressive
utilities to ensure that we are doing all we can to accommodate their
emerging technology needs."
In addition to leveraging Intergraph field automation tools, KCP&L also
uses Intergraph's design and asset management technology, mobile
workforce management application and data integration and analysis tools.
