Western Power Distribution Keeps the Lights On with WebFOCUS
Company Size
1,000+
Region
- Europe
Country
- United Kingdom
Product
- WebFOCUS
- 3iWay Intelligent Adaptors
Tech Stack
- Oracle 10g database
- Mainframe
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Digital Expertise
- Productivity Improvements
Technology Category
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Data Management Platforms
Applicable Industries
- Utilities
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
Use Cases
- Predictive Maintenance
- Real-Time Location System (RTLS)
Services
- Software Design & Engineering Services
- System Integration
About The Customer
Western Power Distribution (WPD) is the electricity distribution network operator for South West England and South and West Wales. The network consists of 83,000 kms of overhead lines and underground cables, and 90,000 substations. The company has approximately 2,300 staff. WPD provides the infrastructure that delivers electricity to the South West and South Wales. Managing such a large area with a vast estate of assets including pylons, cables and substations requires the ability to see what is happening at anytime in order to maintain service. This is vital to ensuring that WPD’s customers, the major utilities, were able to deliver the quality of service expected by consumers.
The Challenge
Western Power Distribution (WPD) is the electricity distribution network operator for South West England and South and West Wales. The network consists of 83,000 kms of overhead lines and underground cables, and 90,000 substations. The company has approximately 2,300 staff. Over the years, the company had established a number of different enterprise applications and systems. However, WPD wanted a business intelligence platform that would allow the company to have a single view of the business, based on multiple data sources, and have the flexibility to offer standardised and bespoke reports respectively. One of the major challenges that WPD wanted to overcome by moving to a new BI platform was the ability to access multiple data sources via a single tool. With key data residing in a variety of systems ranging from a mainframe, Oracle 10g database and other enterprise software applications, WPD did not want to continue providing a reporting tool for each application but rather access all the data and present it using a single BI solution.
The Solution
WPD decided to deal with Information Builders directly to see what solution they could provide to overcome the challenges they had. After a brief review of other vendor offerings, they decided that Information Builders had the most suitable solution for their data access and information delivery needs for the company. Information Builders outlined how they could deploy their iWay Intelligent Adaptors to integrate all the data sources and present it in WebFOCUS. The ability to integrate the data sources and then present the information through reports using Information Builders integration technology and BI platform was very compelling to WPD. It simplified their information management process and the plug and play capabilities of iWay meant they could tie the systems together under the BI system quickly and cost effectively. They also knew that any future updates or new systems could be accommodated easily by the suite of integration adaptors from Information Builders.
Operational Impact
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