In my day job I’m always looking across the technical landscape to see what new tools we can take to our customer base. I’m also working with our R&D team to develop those tools, based on blue sky research and responses to known problems. There really is a lot out there that can help utilities do the same work, in a better way and for less outlay – from new modes of remote sensing through to cloud services and intelligent apps. Now who wouldn’t want that?
A great example was a customer who wanted to save on preliminary field visits during a line refurbishment project. We came up with a means of collecting a birdseye view during a LiDAR survey and presented this in street-view style portal for the project team. It meant that for safety and access purposes there was no need to drive 3 hours to site before sending each work crew out. It was simple, but a real winner.
The problem though is that unlike the above example, it is often very difficult for the engineers, GIS managers and asset strategists to actually buy innovation!
I think the root of the problem comes from a number of sources:
• Companies with an innovative idea may not want to engage in formal testing or pilot programmes because the IP will often then be retained by the utility customer
• Presenting a good idea can sometimes mean that’s what gets put out to market in the tender, so you compete against your own innovation
• Services are procured in a highly functional manner, describing every detail of the service – thus preventing new and innovative approaches which might have the same outcome but a different way of getting there
I believe that when it comes to areas that are open to technological disruption and innovation, the utility group ought to pose the problem to the market, not the solution. It should describe what the result need to be and ask industry to propose the best possible ways of getting the work done. Of course this does mean sharing more information, it does need a greater degree of due diligence by the purchaser, and yes there is some potential risk…but you don’t move forwards by doing again what you did for the last 5 years.
There are great people and great technologies out there – let us help you get them on board.