VeroTrack Automated Survey Tracking

Transcription

1 VeroTrack Automated Survey Tracking Business Case for Full Implementation at Intermountain Gas Company Report Issued: November 30, 2011 Report Updated: April 1, 2012 Prepared For: Hart Gilchrist Manager of Operations Services Intermountain Gas Company Prepared By: Ms. Alicia Farag Program Manager Gas Technology Institute 1700 S. Mount Prospect Rd. Des Plaines, Illinois VeroTrack Implementation at IGC Business Case

2 Legal Notice This information was prepared by Gas Technology Institute ( GTI ) for Intermountain Gas Company. Neither GTI, the members of GTI, the Sponsor(s), nor any person acting on behalf of any of them: a. Makes any warranty or representation, express or implied with respect to the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of the information contained in this report, or that the use of any information, apparatus, method, or process disclosed in this report may not infringe privately-owned rights. Inasmuch as this project is experimental in nature, the technical information, results, or conclusions cannot be predicted. Conclusions and analysis of results by GTI represent GTI's opinion based on inferences from measurements and empirical relationships, which inferences and assumptions are not infallible, and with respect to which competent specialists may differ. b. Assumes any liability with respect to the use of, or for any and all damages resulting from the use of, any information, apparatus, method, or process disclosed in this report; any other use of, or reliance on, this report by any third party is at the third party's sole risk. c. The results within this report relate only to the items tested. VeroTrack Implementation at IGC Business Case Page ii

3 Table of Contents Legal Notice... ii Table of Contents... iii Executive Summary... 1 Background... 2 Project Description... 2 Project Objective... 2 Scope... 2 Outcomes/Deliverables... 2 Technology Alternatives... 3 Cost Benefit Analysis... 3 Cost Reduction... 3 Risk Reduction... 5 Additional Impacts... 5 Conclusions... 6 VeroTrack Implementation at IGC Business Case Page iii

4 Executive Summary The purpose of this document is to provide a business case and return on investment (ROI) analysis of VeroTrack implementation at Intermountain Gas Company (IGC). VeroTrack was developed in 2009 by InMaps (acquired by Ubisense in 2011) with support from GTI. IGC has approximately 11,500 miles of mains and services that require leak surveying in accordance with federal and state regulations. IGC must perform and document leak survey activities including routes surveyed and leaks found and report this information back to state regulators. Like most other natural gas utility companies, IGC uses a process that involves a combination of driving and walking leak surveys with paper maps, highlighting, paper leak forms, and manual data transfer. The objective of this project was to implement a software system that automates the leak surveying process at IGC through the VeroTrack product. VeroTrack was expected to provide the following functionality: Replace paper maps with electronic maps on a portable handheld device, Replace manual map highlighting with automated GPS tracking to document routes, Eliminate the need for manual route documentation, Replace paper leak tickets with electronic leak tickets on a portable handheld device, Eliminate the need for manual leak ticket documentation and transfer, Provide GPS-based verification that leak surveys were completed, Provide verification that leak survey equipment was properly used, Provide near-real time updates on survey completion status, and Provide a means to capture the location and nature of unsafe conditions. The deliverable of the project was the full implementation of VeroTrack at IGC. The VeroTrack implementation included the following components: VeroTrack Server, VeroTrack Field, Trimble Juno handheld GPS devices, and Bluetooth enabled Heath RMLD devices. IGC was the first company to fully implement VeroTrack. The project was ultimately successful after working through challenges associated with a new product and a new approach to leak survey. VeroTrack Implementation at IGC Business Case Page 1

5 Background IGC has approximately 11,500 miles of mains and services that require leak surveying in accordance with federal and state regulations. IGC must perform and document leak survey activities including routes surveyed and leaks found and report this information back to state regulators. Current IGC practices include: Use of paper maps and customer lists from the Customer Watch Customer Information System (CIS), Paper maps are highlighted in the field as the leak survey progresses, Customer list generated from the CIS is checked off when the leak surveyor returns to the office and the information is then entered into the CIS to track compliance, and Geographic Information System (GIS) is linked to the CIS, therefore compliance can also be tracked in the GIS. Project Description Project Objective The objective of this project was to implement a software system that automates the leak surveying process at IGC through the VeroTrack product. VeroTrack was expected to provide the following functionality: Replace paper maps with electronic maps on a portable handheld device, Replace manual map highlighting with automated GPS tracking to document routes, Eliminate the need for manual route documentation, Replace paper leak tickets with electronic leak tickets on a portable handheld device, Eliminate the need for manual leak ticket documentation and transfer, Provide GPS-based verification that leak surveys were completed, Provide verification that leak survey equipment was properly used, Provide near-real time updates on survey completion status, and Provide a means to capture the location and nature of unsafe conditions. Scope The VeroTrack implementation for the leak surveying program at IGC included five Leak Surveyors, the Leak Survey Manager and several back-office personnel required to support the implementation. The original scope of the project only included walking leak surveying and did not include mobile driving leak surveys. However, it became apparent that a complete leak surveying solution was needed in order to realize the benefits of VeroTrack and it is anticipated that a mobile component will be added in the future. Outcomes/Deliverables The deliverable of the project was the full implementation of VeroTrack at IGC. VeroTrack implementation included the following components: VeroTrack Server, VeroTrack Field, Trimble Juno handheld GPS devices, and Bluetooth enabled Heath RMLD devices. VeroTrack Implementation at IGC Business Case Page 2

6 Technology Alternatives When development of VeroTrack began in 2009, there were no known applications with similar capabilities. Today there are several applications that use GPS to track leak survey routes from companies such as TD Williamson, EZTech, Heath, and Bascom Turner. However none of these solutions have the ability to utilize a company s GIS data to automatically track leak survey completion status. GTI investigated two other solutions that appear to provide similar functionality as VeroTrack that are being developed on a customized basis. Both of these solutions are still under development and results are not available for comparison at this time. Cost Benefit Analysis IGC elected to implement VeroTrack based on the expectation of achieving cost and risk reductions as well as improved regulatory compliance. Costs would be reduced from reduced back office processing and documentation time and risks would be lowered by reducing inaccurate survey documentation. Improved compliance was expected to be achieved through electronic and GPS-based survey tracking that provided enhanced oversight and documentation of leak surveying activities. The cost-benefit analysis assesses the benefits that IGC realized or expects to realize in the near future from VeroTrack implementation utilizing Net Present Value (NPV) and ROI calculations. A Total Cost of Ownership approach was utilized to estimate the life cycle costs over seven years. The following costs were included: VeroTrack Field VeroTrack Server VeroTrack configuration and implementation IGC personnel costs for implementation, Annual VeroTrack licensing costs, Annual training, Hardware replacements, and IGC personnel costs for on-going maintenance and support. A Total Value of Ownership approach was utilized to estimate the life cycle benefits over seven years. The value associated with VeroTrack includes both quantitative and qualitative benefits. The former include reduced labor costs associated with leak survey and regulatory compliance monitoring as well as reduced storage and handling costs for paper maps and documents. The later through avoidance of regulatory compliance issues and incidents (further described in the Risk Reduction section below although not quantified in the NPV and ROI calculations). Cost Reduction Cost reductions are in the form of increased efficiency and decreased labor associated with the leak surveying process. Elimination of Manual Documentation The primary cost reduction results from the elimination of the manual documentation of leak survey routes. According to the Leak Survey Manager, manually transferring leak survey routes required approximately 2 hours for every 8 hours of surveying. By electronically tracking the location of leak VeroTrack Implementation at IGC Business Case Page 3

7 surveyors in relation to mains and services using GPS, VeroTrack eliminates the need to manually record the routes that were surveyed. The estimated efficiency gain in the field portion of the leak survey documentation process is estimated to be 20%. Optimized Navigation Another field process that was potentially made more efficient was navigation. Leak surveyors had to plan their routes manually in the morning and continuously look at maps throughout the day to determine the appropriate place to survey. As will be discussed in the risk reduction section below, the alternative was that the maps were not consulted and the required route was potentially not surveyed. VeroTrack provides leak surveyors with a map that guides them to the correct location to be surveyed. It should be noted that all Leak Surveyors may not adhere to the same process when using VeroTrack and the realization of the benefits discussed above may be dependent on the rate of process standardization. It was originally envisioned that VeroTrack would replace paper leak ticket forms with electronic leak ticket forms and further reduce the labor associated with the field and office documentation process. However, IGC requires sketches of the leak location and VeroTrack currently does not have the ability to electronically record sketch features. While automation of the leak ticket process may be implemented in the future, it has not been included as part of this analysis. Integration with Compliance Management VeroTrack has resulted in new efficiencies as well as additional work for the Leak Survey Manager. The Leak Survey Manager must review and manually correct segments of pipe that have been surveyed but were not picked up by VeroTrack. The system is designed to allow the field surveyors to correct these errors in real-time in the field, but IGC has elected to leave this task to the Leak Survey Manager to maximize the efficiency of the field surveyors. The planned integration of VeroTrack with Essentials, IGC s compliance management software, is expected to provide significant time savings in the process of determining annual survey completion in real-time and directing work to ensure annual requirements are met. The extra time required by the Leak Survey Manager to manually review the leak survey documentation is estimated to result in a 10% decrease in efficiency. The time savings resulting from the integration with Essentials is expected to yield a 20% increase in efficiency. The extra time required to monitor and correct leak survey documentation has proven to be a significant time burden for the Leak Survey Manager during implementation. While some of the work associated with this task will continue on an on-going basis, the burden is expected to be significantly reduced in the future. VeroTrack has undergone several changes to accommodate an efficient review process and IGC anticipates the elimination of the backlog processor which created the extra work. The net efficiency gain for the Leak Survey Manager is estimated to be 10%. Implementation and maintenance of VeroTrack also created new processes for the GIS Department. Extra time will be required each year to extract GIS information required to run VeroTrack. However, VeroTrack eliminates the need for producing maps for the traditional leak survey process and the time savings may be equivalent to original process. For purposes of this analysis, eight hours of additional time each year were included as a net decrease in efficiency. VeroTrack Implementation at IGC Business Case Page 4

8 Risk Reduction Reducing risk is more difficult to quantify but the primary benefit of reduced opportunity for accidental and intentional incompletion of leak surveying may be the key driver behind the implementation of VeroTrack or similar technologies. It is expected that leak surveyors will be reluctant to intentionally report leak surveys as 'complete' if they have not been completed. The GPS tracking is expected to provide sufficient oversight to reduce the occurrence of short-cuts and shade tree compliance. Leak surveyors and managers will be able to use VeroTrack in real-time to ensure that pipe segments are not accidentally missed. Realized benefits of VeroTrack and electronic GPS route tracking include: VeroTrack reduces the potential for the use of outdated paper maps by providing frequent (at least annual) map updates to the Leak Surveyors. The Leak Survey Manager has estimated that up to 5% of the pipe segments recorded as incomplete during the initial implementation were in fact incomplete. Assuming these would have to be manually highlighted with the old system, this represents a risk that was previously hidden. The other 95% of the missed pipe segments resulted from VeroTrack inaccurately recording them as incomplete or, more commonly, the backlog survey maps did not cover all the facilities. Most of the issues causing the inaccurate reporting have been corrected. VeroTrack provides a navigation tool that ensures the correct facilities are being surveyed. Leak Surveyors may not always consult with the map to verify that the correct facility is being surveyed. This type of reporting presents both an enhanced awareness as well as a challenge for the Leak Survey Manager. The Leak Survey Manager was previously reliant on the documentation provided by the Leak Surveyors to ensure compliance. With VeroTrack, pipe segments occasionally show up as un-surveyed that were expected to have been surveyed. The Leak Survey Manager must determine if the cause was a GPS/software error or if the pipe segment was actually missed by the Leak Surveyor. VeroTrack has a feature that allows the Leak Surveyors and the Leak Survey Manager to manually change the survey status of specific pipe segments. While this feature could be abused, it is expected that it will only be used appropriately because a record of pipe segments that were manually changed is maintained and tracked. Additional Impacts An analysis of any new technology implementations should include consideration of impacts beyond those immediately involved. Since the initial pilot, IGC has expanded VeroTrack to cover Atmospheric Corrosion surveys, and taken advantage of the data export capability to do specialty reporting from their GIS. Further study is needed to fully understand the impacts of VeroTrack on other departments and processes related to training, standards, quality assurance, and compliance. As an additional benefit, when abnormal conditions are found, surveyors can now submit an electronic, GPS-located report that expedites the resolution process to enhance system integrity. VeroTrack Implementation at IGC Business Case Page 5

9 Conclusions The VeroTrack implementation at IGC successfully replaced the original paper-based process involving manual documentation. Although any new technology is expected to have challenges and VeroTrack was no exception the system is delivering on all the benefits expected. VeroTrack leverages the GIS by getting data into the field and using it as the basis for tracking a critical compliance activity. As described in this report, not only is IGC operating more efficiently, but managers and regulators alike are more confident in the survey results. ### VeroTrack Implementation at IGC Business Case Page 6