Utilities and energy companies are overwhelmed by growing populations and the need for data storage for the massive amounts of information connected to their systems, regardless of weather conditions.
Weather can profoundly affect the functionality of energy and utility companies. With recent wildfires, mudslides, tornadoes, and hurricanes ravaging the United States, energy and utility companies are tasked with everything from local power restoration to utility and power line repairs. How do these companies prepare for natural disasters while proactively addressing the issues presented after the storm has passed?
Utility companies frequently turn to cutting-edge technology and AI-powered systems to fortify their defenses against natural disasters, even before they strike.
Consider the damage left behind by a tornado or hurricane. You could be facing days, if not weeks, without power. Energy and utility companies need an effective response to minimize service impacts for customers while also ensuring their safety. There are several considerations for utility companies going into a natural disaster or severe weather event:
While making informed and timely decisions after a disaster, energy and utility companies are also taking proactive steps to improve asset resiliency before these natural disasters occur. With the IBM Maximo Application Suite and AI-powered technology, energy and utility companies have the robust digital tools needed to better prepare for extreme weather conditions such as tornadoes and hurricanes.
Energy and utility companies store a vast amount of data, from historical records to weather stations, sensors, drones, utility poles, power stations, satellites, and more. While this data poses a potential risk, it can also be leveraged to predict severe weather patterns and subsequent damages incurred—pairing devices like drones and satellites with Maximo’s AI-powered technology.
With Maximo Application Suite’s Reliability Strategies application, energy and utility companies are equipped with the tools needed to solve the challenges behind identifying aging and at-risk assets across multiple locations. Reliability Strategies offers several benefits that combine asset performance, management, and maintenance into a single platform.
Energy and utility companies must ensure employee and customer safety during high-risk natural disasters. Integrating with MAS, IBM’s Environmental Intelligence Suite allows for planning around these situations, using AI technology to prepare for emergencies and predictive analytics to mitigate risks.
With severe weather and natural disasters come crews getting out to make repairs. However, delays can occur with roadblocks, flooding, and other issues that prevent the transportation of crews and first responders to field locations needing immediate response. Delays aside, paper-based tracking is also unsustainable in the long term and won’t efficiently inform future decision-making for asset management, maintenance, and repair. Using Maximo Mobile in MAS, crews can efficiently overcome delayed crew responses and paper-based inspection challenges.
Tracking assets and improving reliability gives energy and utility companies the power and flexibility to avoid chaos when natural disasters occur. With Maximo, data is protected in the cloud, minimizing impacts on local IT teams. From reliability and redundancy to security and low maintenance, Maximo relieves the burden of IT departments and operational managers, giving them more time to focus efforts on improved performance and future expansion plans. A brief recap of some of the top benefits energy and utility companies gain in using Maximo AI technology:
As a city on the coastline with the potential to be ravaged by hurricanes, Pompano Beach Utilities became the first utility in Southeast Florida to implement Maximo in the cloud. This gave them a high return on investment, powerful reporting tools, and expert support from a premier Projetech partner.
In a transformative AI era, Projetech’s cloud-based Maximo solutions offer reliable, flexible services at lower operational costs than traditional cloud-based EAM platforms, giving energy and utility companies an edge when preparing for a severe weather event.
Interested in learning more about how cloud-based Maximo can improve the reliability of organizational assets? Contact us today to get started!
