SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
InformationWeek announced Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) as the
winner of the 2017 IT Excellence Award in the Data and Analytics
category. The annual award program recognizes leaders and companies that
demonstrate outstanding innovation in information technology (IT). PG&E
was recognized for its Mobile Asset Inspection app that provides
PG&E gas and electric power inspectors in the field with real-time
information including maps, customer information, safety and access
information.
“Winning the InformationWeek 2017 IT Excellence Award in Data and
Analytics is a great honor and I’m thrilled for our employees. At PG&E
we are constantly on the lookout for innovative technology solutions
that can help deliver safe, reliable, affordable and clean energy to our
customers. In 2016 we stood up an enterprise mobility unit called
Digital Catalyst to focus on building internal apps from the ground up
and rolling mobile capabilities out to our workforce. The Mobile Asset
Inspection app was one of the first apps to be developed by this team,”
said Karen Austin, PG&E Senior Vice President and Chief Information
Officer.
The PG&E Mobile Asset Inspection app provides PG&E gas and electric
power inspectors digital map and customer data, and the location of
assets that may require repairs. It has also improved employee safety by
allowing inspectors to view the safest way to access the asset and
reduced driver time.
As an example of the app in action, when PG&E
crews went out on storm patrol in January, they used the app to
identify electric distribution poles in need of repair. Using the
satellite map view, layered with PG&E asset information, they determined
the safest, most efficient route to the affected sites. In addition to
using the app on the ground, it helped inspectors patrolling by
helicopter identify and locate poles that might need repair.
“Our strategy is about building homegrown apps internally for our
people, by our people to help deliver safe and reliable service to our
customers,” said Austin. “The framework that the Mobile Asset Inspection
app was built on will be reused to create future apps to improve safety
and efficiency across the company.”
PG&E’s Digital Catalyst team built the app using a “design thinking”
development concept working closely with electric and gas field workers
and spending 400 hours on field research discovery, shadowing field
workers to learn about their day-to-day work. Satellite maps were
layered with the location of PG&E’s two million electric poles along
with decades’ worth of data on each individual pole. The Minimum Viable
Product (MVP) was built in three months and was rolled out to a pilot
group of field workers to get feedback and input.
The InformationWeek 2017 IT Excellence Award winners were announced at
InformationWeek's IT Leadership Summit on May 16 at Interop ITX in Las
Vegas.
About InformationWeek IT Excellence Awards
Entries were evaluated by the InformationWeek editorial team on
innovative use of technology and degree of business impact and value
achieved. The selected IT Excellence Award winners stand out as true
innovators and leaders among their peers. Those chosen as winners
illustrate how organizations can take advantage of technology to
redefine how their businesses operate and succeed.
About PG&E
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E
Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is one of the largest combined natural gas
and electric energy companies in the United States. Based in San
Francisco, with more than 20,000 employees, the company delivers some of
the nation’s cleanest energy to nearly 16 million people in Northern and
Central California. For more information, visit www.pge.com/
and pge.com/news.
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Source: Pacific Gas and Electric Company