COLUMBUS, OH--(Marketwire - March 14, 2011) - Since last August, The United Illuminating Company (UI), a New Haven, Conn.-based regional electric distribution company, has shortened the duration of its power outages, reduced costs and accelerated its repair crews' response to calls for assistance. That success recently netted UI and its business partner ARCOS, Inc. an invitation to speak at the Energy Council of the Northeast's Engineering & Operations Conference. At this week's conference, UI Principal Engineer Kevin Medley and ARCOS Vice President Bruce Duff will show utility executives how UI is restoring power faster through automated callout and resource management.
According to UI, the Conn.-based utility has reduced by 63 percent its average callout time to assemble a crew.
ARCOS and UI's presentation illustrates how the Connecticut utility taps the ARCOS System to streamline a process that often frustrates and sidetracks utility industry supervisors -- contacting and assembling crews after normal business hours on weeknights as well as on weekends and holidays. With ARCOS, UI automatically reaches its construction operations department, meter services department, call center, transmission and substation electricians and overhead line workers, and then assembles crews. The callout system also has a mass notification and alert module for emergency situations beyond crew callout.
"For many utilities, contacting and assembling repair crews is a manual process that entails dialing for help with a paper-based list of crew members' phone numbers; that process drags out restoration time, and makes it harder for utilities to adhere to a complex set of workforce rules and union agreements dictating not only which workers can be called but also in what order," said Duff. "The ARCOS System manages that process automatically, and, according to our customers, reduces CAIDI by 10 to 30 minutes."
The ECNE Engineering & Operations Conference runs from March 17 - 18, 2011. Duff and Medley's presentation begins at 3:30 p.m. EDT at the Crowne Plaza at the Crossings in Warwick, R.I.
About ARCOS, Inc.
Sixteen of the top 25 U.S. utilities rely on the ARCOS Automated Crew Callout and Resource Management System. When the power goes out or other emergency situations occur, the award-winning, web-based ARCOS(SM) System instantaneously finds, assembles and tracks repair crews, thus reducing outage interruptions and improving restoration time for electric, gas and nuclear utilities. For more information, visit www.arcos-inc.com, or call 614-396-5500.
Contact Information:
Media contact:
Bill Perry
Mobile: 614-975-7538