Programme

• Exploring implementation case studies from other settings to establish the suitability of open-source solutions to support electric utility GIS
• Leveraging support from the distributed user community to improve functionality without recourse to traditional vendors or consultants
• Integrating open-source GIS applications with existing proprietary geospatial databases and other information systems to ensure continued legacy functionality
• Calculating and comparing the cost and flexibility benefits of open-source applications against proprietary platforms

• Moving the full scope of planning and maintenance data into GIS to provide a one-stop-shop source of asset information
• Integrating GIS with maintenance data from the field and other enterprise systems
• Processing data on asset condition, performance and life-cycle in GIS to deliver accurate insights to maintenance teams
• Leveraging visualised asset information in GIS to prioritise maintenance activities
• Quantifying the benefit to asset management teams of easy-to-access information on the holistic asset lifecycle

• Overlaying outage information onto GIS data to create a comprehensive picture of the network in real time
• Accessing multiple internal and external data streams and contextualising them with topology and geospatial information
• Equipping control room teams with live maps displaying crucial outage data to improve response times and provide earlier warnings of faults
• Using GIS asset information alongside outage data to identify failure-prone assets to be addressed before failure occurs
• Automatically generating reports and creating visual tools to monitor and convey likely outage duration, impact and cost to the organisation
• Quantifying the power of GIS data to support reductions in network failure and improve responses to remaining incidents

• Enabling a holistic overview of field operations to optimise deployment and manage third-party contractors
• Developing accessible platforms and applications for use by both internal and external field crews to coordinate activity and validate works
• Utilising intuitive GIS user interfaces to ensure as-built assets are correctly reflected in the GIS database in a timely manner
• Increasing the support for field users through GIS to improve operations and ensure best engineering practice
• Reviewing the impact of GIS in simplifying and improving the management and effectiveness of field crews

• Ensuring an accurate and complete representation of DERs in GIS to support complete topology data and facilitate better insight into their impact on the grid
• Translating a wide variety of new devices and components from multiple manufacturers into your utility network model
• Continuing to accurately reflect grid topology to support reliable analysis on the impact of unpredictable DERs in the grid
• Utilising GIS data to automatically provide information on available network capacity to internal and external clients
• Leveraging GIS to help ensure the reliability of the grid while supporting the uptake of decentralised energy

• Comprehensively securing GIS systems using a combination of technological and operational approaches
• Accurately assessing the security of GIS systems through periodic penetration testing
• Achieving an acceptable balance between GIS security and ease-of-use
• Establishing effective role-based access control based on an accurate understanding of third-party GIS requirements
• Mitigating enhanced cybersecurity risk from the use of legacy GIS in conjunction with cloud services
• Leveraging virtualization to isolate third-party GIS usage from enterprise system

The conference concludes with a deep-dive into GIS system integration. This extended workshop features a presentation on various approaches to effectively integrating enterprise GIS with other OT and IT systems, as well as breakout discussions and interactive work to enable focussed and targeted reflection on the challenges and opportunities faced. Areas covered will include:

• Appraising existing system architecture to ensure critical decisions are taken based on all available information
• The specific challenges faced in integrating GIS with different utility systems including SCADA, ERP and (A)DMS
• Different approaches to digital architecture and their suitability for your organisation based on multiple criteria
• The merits of industry standards in ensuring flexible system interoperability
• The institution of robust data governance frameworks to clearly define data ownership and hierarchies

Change management strategy to mitigate the organisational upheaval associated with digital transformation