The last ten to twenty years have seen a steadily growing awareness across industries of the benefits of proper Asset Management, as well as the obvious disadvantages of poor management of assets. This awareness is specifically apparent in the Power Industry, with an aging infrastructure and workforce coupled with economic pressures enforced by re-regulation and the current economic downturn. Obviously, an apparent tool for utilities seeking to improving efficiency and effectiveness of asset management strategies is the implementation of IT-systems in support of the operational processes. To investigate current state of the practice regarding IT systems for Asset Management a survey has been conducted among a number of mid-sized utilities, and the paper presents the preliminary results of this study. The empirical data for the study comes not only from electric utilities, but also from the pulp and paper industry thereby providing excellent opportunities for benchmarking and comparison across industries. Interestingly, the preliminary findings show large differences in both chosen strategies for asset management as well as use of IT systems in support of the operational processes. The survey also shows that the utilities have chosen very different strategies for improving their asset management processes. In addition, the utilities have very differing priorities when it comes to implementation of IT systems for Asset Management. In short, five specific areas providing opportunity for improvement regarding IT system use have been identified. These are: Asset documentation, Resource Management, Production Management, Workflow management and Maintenance planning tools. Of further interest are the differences between how these areas of improvement are approached among the utilities and pulp and paper industry, respectively. The paper provides, based on the data from the survey, an analysis and discussion on strategies for Asset Management as well as IT system implementation based on the identified Areas of Opportunity.

Wide-area networks (WANs) are being deployed worldwide at power utilities. By replacing vintage narrowband solutions, broadband communications can now be used for an entire utility enterprise. One new possibility that has opened up is to improve power system maintenance. During the last ten years, the benefits of adequate asset management have become increasingly clear in the power industry due to the economic pressures and aging infrastructure. An apparent tool to improve the asset-management strategies is the implementation of information technology systems that support the operational processes. The impact of these systems can be further enhanced by efficient communications, allowing the proliferation of functionality and data access. This paper describes the initial stages in analyzing the combined effects of enhanced communication and maintenance requirements. It provides a useful maintenance categorization, based on empirical data. Also, areas of improvement for power system maintenance are elucidated together with the benefit of enhanced communications.

Thispaper introduces the challenges apparent when introducing IT support forasset management. This is further accentuated in the power industryby challenges with an aging infrastructure, workforce and economic pressuresenforced by deregulation. Since asset management spans so many organisationaldepartments and requires support from many systems it would benefitgreatly from a truly integrated utility. Utilities seeking to improvetheir asset management capabilities are supporting the strategic planning andoperational processes. This paper presents a set of approaches thatutilities may consider when implementing the integrated utility vision. Twoadditional aspects need to be considered when using current integrationapproaches. These are the relation between business process and dataand the allocation of this data over the existing andnew systems. This paper also analysis these two aspects thatneeds standardised CIM framework and well established UML extensions.

Cost-efficient and effective power system maintenance is dependent on timely access to accurate information about the status of equipment and work orders in planning, execution or in completed status. However, Information Systems at many utilities are not properly configured to support these requirements. Implementation and integration of new and existing systems often requires large effort involving many parts of the utility and still in many cases does not lead to desired gains in efficiency and effectiveness.

This paper proposes a modeling approach using extensions to the Unified Modeling Language (UML) that facilitate modeling of power system maintenance at utilities. The purpose of the approach is to enhance analysis of the Information Systems used in support of power system maintenance. The benefits of using UML have already been shown in the power industry by its use in creating the Common Information Model (CIM). The benefits of using the proposed approach are that it better captures the interorganizational challenges when implementing and integrating Information System for maintenance of power systems thereby reducing the risk of failure.

Properly applied, information technology can go a long way to meet challenges introduced by the changes in power flow introduced by the opening of electricity markets. To provide efficient support to utilities information systems must be well adapted to current and future business needs. For some years the goal of information systems support at utilities have been an integrated suite of IT systems that are well aligned to the business processes. This, to some extent utopian, goal is sometimes referred to as the Integrated Utility.

This paper presents experiences with applying a modelling approach, using established notation and standards that can be used to analyze utility-wide information system architectures. The specific characteristic of the modelling approach presented in this paper is that the modelling is done with the IEC standardised Common Information Model as a basis. The benefits of using the approach is that it provides a straightforward method to create consistent documentation of use of data and functionality across several systems. The output created consist of unambiguous UML compliant models, and standards based functionality listings in which data and functionality duplication and overlap can be identified.

The paper is concluded with a presentation of a case study in which the proposed approach was applied to a real world utility's business processes and systems. The case study shows promising results for the approach, but also underlines the need for farther work.