Breaking Down Work Silos

There’s a ton of different work that might be performed on a utility pole– equipment upgrades, pole replacements, third-party attachments, pole inspections, and so on. But if we wanted to split all work into only two categories, we could say there’s planned work and there’s responsive work. 

Planned work is the maintenance, the stuff we know will happen because it has to happen. It’s scheduled, like replacing poles, conducting pole inspections, updating equipment, etc. 

Responsive work is the stuff that pops up when other people want to use poles–aka make ready and third-party attachments. 

Planned and responsive workflows usually operate outside of each other. Planned work is tracked and managed over here. Responsive work is handled over there. Unfortunately, this means that the right hand often doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. 

For example, let’s say a pole inspection team finds a pole in their inspection cycle is currently failing and a c-truss won’t fix it. They call for a pole replacement, the construction crew puts in the new pole, and moves on to solve the next problem. 

While all this is happening, an attacher has applied to said pole. The field crew gathers documentation on the current state, and when engineering the designers realize they need to put in a bigger pole to have enough space for the attachment. So, the brand new pole is removed and replaced with a larger one, and the transfer process begins yet again.

Cutting Costs by Combining Workflows 

The problem is, planned and responsive work end up in their own silos, as if they operate in their own worlds. In reality, they both affect the reliability of the grid and each other. 

When we treat them as pieces of the same puzzle, it improves the work that gets done– construction can match the design without delaying or prolonging projects. We can do better work and do more work. 

When you coordinate planned pole inspections with an application, you provide better services to members and customers without incurring more costs. Think about that pole replacement example we mentioned earlier. What if, instead of replacing a pole twice, attachers and utilities shared the costs of the bigger pole replacement? Costs get recouped, attachers can safely get on the pole without extra wait time, and utilities can spend less money to get better results. 

You can also stretch maintenance dollars farther by planning work more efficiently. If you have a feeder selected as part of the sample for pole inspections, and 80% of that feeder is included in an attachment request, you know that you’re going to get the attacher’s data and you’re own subs’ data collection on those poles. 

Instead of getting a third set of data on the same assets, you can shift your inspection plan to inspect an area that has fewer records and data. This lets you optimize data intake so you can get a more holistic view of your footprint and grid health. However, it requires excellent visibility between planned and responsive work. 

So, how do we break down silos, leverage dollars to do more, and create a robust, thriving grid?

It starts with the data. 

Improving the Data to Serve the Customer

Data is hard to manage, and both planned and responsive programs have loads of data. Sometimes, in an effort to gather and maintain records, we start to feel like we’re serving data at the expense of the customer. And when data is supposed to serve us, this is really frustrating. 

It’s hard to leverage data in any manner (much less across departments) if we can’t trust the data we use. We need to improve datasets without creating unnecessary friction for teams. One of the best ways to do this is with routine inventories and by leveraging multiple forms of data (across permitting, PCI, and auditing processes to get a full, living snapshot of the grid. 

Once we have good data, we have to use the right processes to leverage it well. 

1. Keep the data clean and make it findable. Our team uses a facility lookup page. It shows all the assets, historical surveys, previous work, and any other workflows that the pole is currently in. 

   
   

2. Keep all parties informed. When attachers want to apply to a pole currently undergoing in another workflow, it’s good to let them know. Conflicting work may create new issues or change plans. When someone submits an application in Katapult Pro for a pole currently in another application, a warning gives them a heads-up that this pole is a part of overlapping applications.

   
   

3. Keep your team in the know. Similar to application warnings, we also flag poles within the portal that are part of an active application, be it for equipment upgrade, pole inspections, make ready, or other workflows. This lets anyone looking at the pole know that the current state is in flux and will change. It also helps pinpoint areas of overlap that teams can leverage to save money and drive decisions for maintenance work.

We can not build a resilient grid if we don’t find a way to break down silos and integrate programs. 

We need to stop treating maintenance and make ready as if they happen in a vacuum. The fact is, the grid needs to be upgraded to handle the huge changes we’re seeing in the utilities industry. Increased broadband deployment is changing the timeline for those improvements, but instead of seeing broadband as a threat to the grid, we must shift our thinking to see it as an opportunity. 

By using third-party attachments to inform when you perform maintenance, you can leverage responsive work to make planned work more effective, more timely, and more impactful without increasing capital expenditures. 

The longer we wait, the harder it becomes to catch up. Prepare your team and your grid for BEAD, smart tech integration, greater demands, and more starting today.