Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | JANUARY 2021 | 41 Operational Excellence Access all areas Utility Week Live Online was divided into two content streams – Operational Excellence and Innovation. All of the content is available to view on demand free, at: www.utilityweeklive.co.uk/ uwlo-on-demand Managing gas mains replacement during Covid SGN's head of engineering policy, Annabel West, told the UWLO audience that aer 18 years of working on the iron mains replacement programme, gas dis- tribution networks have got good at it. She explained: "We have a technique called live mains insertion that allows us to keep the gas flowing. "We insert our old cast iron main with a slightly smaller diameter polyethylene main and we continue to feed the adja- cent properties using the gas in the annu- lar space between the old pipe and the new pipe. "We only isolate the service to the property when we need to transfer from the old pipe to the new main. We transfer the service, turn the gas back on, purge the system and relight the boiler." West said it is these last two safety critical steps that have held up the pro- gramme during Covid-19. She said: "This need to go into peo- ple's homes is causing additional stress in communities that are already strug- gling and their stress in turn puts addi- tional pressure on our teams." When it became obvious the pandemic was not going to away in a few weeks or even months, SGN launched an innova- tion project to find a way of carrying out mains replacements without entering customers' homes or disrupting supply. SGN innovation delivery manager Ryan Smith explained how the com- pany reached out to other networks and together came up with more than 30 pos- sible ideas. "We looked at fittings that could be adapted to do a temporary bypass for the duration of the isolation period, and as we work through that we're looking at more permanent options that we could subsequently develop," Smith said. A number of these have already been tested by SGN and are now being assessed by regulators ahead of being deployed. Covid is a catalyst for digital transformation The Connecting and Protecting a Pro- ductive Workforce session saw speak- ers from UK Power Networks (UKPN), Soware AG and SGN gather to discuss their experiences of using different technologies to help keep operations going during the pandemic. James Cotter, contact centre man- ager at UKPN, talked about how his company has introduced a work- force planning app described as the "jewel" in the company's crown of IT applications. Prior to the app's launch, UKPN was using an outdated contact centre system which Cotter said resulted in lower satisfaction scores compared with other network operators. The new technology introduces an auto- mated service, providing flexibility and allowing the company to better manage its workforce. Cotter said: "While the app was in place before Covid there was no way we could have achieved the balance of home working and office working, and those rotations, without the technol- ogy. The way we were working before it would not have been possible." Ben Croxford, senior business part- ner, SHE (safety, health and environ- ment) development at SGN, agreed and said he believes the pandemic has forced the sector to rethink how it con- ducts its business. "Covid was the catalyst for digi- tal transformation because we were forced down an avenue where we had to incorporate these technologies to continue our way of working," he said. "If Covid had hit us ten years ago, we would not have had the kind of response we've had now", Bart Schouw, chief evangelist at Soware AG, said, referencing the availability of virtual working. Schouw talked about "smart social distancing", where technology helps maintain a safe distance for employ- ees who cannot work from home. "Humans like to work together. Even if it's possible to work from home, I think we have to strike a bal- ance where we can also meet physi- cally," he said. efforts it has had to make in order to myth-bust misinformation spread on social media. During the "Smarter approaches to smart metering" panel session, Dun- can discussed the operational chal- lenges his company is facing during the rollout, including combatting fake news. He said: "There were some absurd examples from newspapers, for exam- ple suggesting burglars could use your smart meter to see when you're not at home. It always seemed ludi- crous to me, that burglars had gone from peeking through someone's win- dow to hacking into systems to see if you were at home. They might have been giving the average burglar too much credit. "As stories landed we'd have an immediate impact on cancellations and new bookings so we had to be quick on our feet and get information out to advisers and technicians as soon as possible. We had news alerts sent to our people with objection-han- dling techniques and myth- busting cards to counteract those stories. "Speed, of course, is always criti- cal in these cases. Just one opinion or example was enough to print a newspaper story. A good PR team was needed to refute fake stories." Headline sponsor

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