R-APDRP: GIS & Utilities Business Process Re-engineering

Massive Aggregate Transmission and Commercial (AT&C) losses have long crippled the financial viability of State Distribution Companies. To address this problem a targeted funding mechanism was introduced for the first time in 2003 in the form of the Accelerated Power Development Reforms Programme (APDRP). Its key objectives were to reduce AT&C losses, improve customer satisfaction as well as financial viability of the SDCs, adopt a systems approach and introduce greater transparency.Unfortunately, the benefits under the first APDRP were not linked to well defined objecives, Quality checks, demonstrable performance and it failed glaringly to achieve its goals. In several cases, funds under the first APDRP were utilised without taking cognisance of the need to reduce AT&C losses. To illustrate, in the state of Bihar, significant amounts of money received under the first APDRP were spent on sophisticated equipment for substations, while very little money was spent on procuring meters to measure actual consumption of electricity. In fact, AT&C losses increased in Haryana, Jharkhand, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh under the first APDRP. It was in this backdrop that the Restructured APDRP (R-APDRP) was conceived in September 2008.


R-APDRP seeks to commence with tackling the problem of un-metered supply and lack of proper data acquisition systems, followed by system up-gradation and modernisation of equipment. Proposals under R-APDRP will be considered in two phases. In the first phase, proposals for establishing reliable and automated systems for the sustained collection of accurate baseline data and IT applications for energy accounting/auditing and IT-based consumer service centres will be considered for funding. In the second phase, proposals for strengthening/upgradation of power distribution will be considered.
Nowdays, We face obvious questions. For ex. how GIS is going to help in solving the problems of "Utilities" which are facing the challenges of reducing the AT&C losses and incresing the profits? How R-APDRP is different from APDRP in terms of implementation?  It seems that just changing the funding mechanism and implementing a GIS will not result in any reengineering and improvement in the performance and profit. Not implementing a GIS will not preclude effective reengineering either. What the GIS can do are:

• Help identify critical information needed for the business process  and decision making (turning data into information)
• Help to rethink organizational issues by bringing to light low value organizational boundary interfaces
• Facilitate process improvement steps by organizing all geographic and facility information in one common data source
• Enable new creative thinking which could lead to dramatic improvements in the policy implmentations and monitoring the performance of the network and utilty staff as well

Assuming that the GIS is open and accessible to all users within the business unit, the GIS will link the customer directly to the product delivery system. In the past, the billing and customer systems probably have not been integrated into the delivery system data. With the GIS, this is changed. Thus rather than looking at process reengineering of a billing or customer system or an engineering system, it becomes possible to look at reengineering a retail electric business system (the broader view). As stated before, nearly all aspects of the retail electric business, from marketing to sales to collection of bad revenue involve a customer base that is spatial. The benefit of reengineering is to dramatically improve several dimensions in the business process, namely:

• Reduction of gaps in the consumer billing data & the revenue realisation
• Cycle Time - the life cycle measured in elapsed time from the beginning of the process to the end.
• Cost - the total cost to maintain the system
• Service - the value of the relationship of the customer to the provider of the product or service.

Cost will be a major factor after the project completion for maintaining the currency of the data and maintenance. The biggest obstacle to reengineering may be in the attitude that improvement in the cycle time dimension involves a degradation in one of the other dimensions.