British state of the art OR software aids pipeline maintenance worldwide
STORMS helps Transco stay calm
by Nigel Cummings
STSs work management system, STORMS, has recently been implemented in four
regions of the UKs largest gas supplier, Transco. The installations in the
Northern, Eastern, Southern and South Eastern districts of Transco follow a
successful pilot scheme run throughout last summer.
Transco purchased STORMS twelve months ago in a bid to improve the management
of construction and maintenance of its 273,000 kilometres of pipe network.
STORMS effectively replaces the work previously done by 12 regional systems,
controlling Transcos entire work management operation, and integrating with
other related computer systems.
The scope of this operation covers planned and unplanned maintenance of pipes
and other network assets, and ensures compliance with the New Roads and Street
Works Act, including the information requirement of Highway Authorities and
other utilities. It will also provide precise and comprehensive management
information and maintain Transcos asset base records.
STORMS was developed by STS especially for the utility industry. It operates
within Transcos existing desktop environment, providing users with a Windows-based
client/server application. It will also be integrated with other Transco systems,
such as Supplies and Payroll.
Transcos Work and Asset Programme Manager, Dave Halsey, commented: It is vital
that we provide a safe and reliable gas supply service to our customers, so
the effective management of work is crucial to Transco.
In common with other UK utilities coping with de-regulation and Customer Charters,
Transco is acutely aware of the standard of service it provides. STORMS should
provide even greater flexibility and control to create prompt and accurate
work scheduling information resulting in customer service improvements.
Development of programme modules continues and recently STS have announced
their Crew Scheduler which has been developed following on from the STORMS
development plans, which were established when Transco was evaluating STORMS
prior to awarding the contract to STS. At the same time, Transco suggested
that their scheduling procedures could be improved.
The Scheduler is a component that can be integrated with existing work management
systems, such as STORMS. It utilises state-of-the-art constraint-based scheduling
techniques to produce schedules automatically. The user specifies the work
requests to be scheduled and the crews that they want the work allocated to.
STS (The Severn Trent Systems group) is a software products and services organisation
providing customer information, marketing information, engineering analysis
and work management software including mobile field systems, and related professional
services to help clients achieve these objectives. The groups solutions are
used by the electric, natural gas, water and petroleum industries world-wide.
Stoner Associates provides off-line network modelling and on-line, real-time
pipeline simulation software and a full range of related professional and consulting
services.
For further information, please contact: Jane Edmans, Group Marketing Executive,
STS (UK). Tel: 0121 717 7755. Email: jane.edmans@sts.co.uk Web: www.sts.co.uk
First published to members of the Operational Research
Society in Inside O.R. May 1999