Prior to FirstEnergy transitioning from GE's PowerOn to Oracle's NMS, crew symbols would move automatically based on map operations (device).
Example:
- Outage at a breaker, crew onsite, symbol would show at breaker.
- (Order number 1234567-1 for discussion purposes. 1234567 refers to the project number 1234567-1 refers to Order number. Further sequences would generate -2, -3, -4 etc.)
- Crew opens downstream switch; crew automatically moved to switch.
- Crew closes breaker, crew symbol moves back to the breaker.
- (the crew followed the “steps”)
- PowerOn did not automatically create a partial event. So, all of these steps would have been recorded on the original order so to speak. Order number 1234567-1
- Restoration for the order would have been one button click inside the event tubular's display and once pressed could not be redone or undone. Instead, an PowerOn user would have to manually create a 1234567-2 order.
This process worked efficiently for FirstEnergy from an outage management perspective to preserve resemblance of outage management work within the OMS as well as preserving resemblance of outage management work that is transferred to another system to be worked outside of the outage management system. For FirstEnergy, we are referring to our integration to SAP for the follow up process. This also worked for FirstEnergy since the outage management system directly correlates work performed with labor and inventory that maintained a resemblance of the original work order number.
With Oracle's NMS, partial restoration generates new related events. Even with NMS being able to automatically relate partial restoration events together, the sequence and management of a project's lifecycle is extremely confusing. For reference, FirstEnergy's six million customers spread across five states that are experiencing a storm where restoration efforts are being performed and labor/inventory are also documented, translates to event sequences that are not logical to the users of the systems. We have to consolidate event numbers into one "project" to capture labor and inventory and so that the number the end users has a good chance of not being the one to which time needs charged. FirstEnergy using Oracle's NMS since 2022 still struggles with using the new methodology and seeks either feedback from other Oracle customers on how they are effectively managing a process similarly described above or requests that Oracle completely reform its event management process if more Oracle customers have similar issues.