Smallworld 4 & Smallworld Field - a product update
Christine Easterfield, GE Energy

Naomi Kellet, GE Energy

Telecommunications Network Inventory System – the OSS Basement
Karel Hodan, TietoEnator

Tuesday 26th April: 11.00-11.45

Organisational challenges when implementing a modern Network Information System

Mr. Ole Bjørn Nilsen, Trondheim Energiverk Nett AS

Trondheim Energiverk Nett AS is the 8’th largest electric distribution network utility in Norway, with approx. 90.000 customers employed slightly less than 200 people before implementing a new NIS. A profitable company, being one of the more efficient companies of its kind in Norway. So why was it implementing a NIS? The introduction of a NIS allowed the company to reorganise to optimise and streamline its business processes. Major drivers for this strategy included a good return on investment of increased functionality, increased quality and reduced operational cost.[80] A major challenge was to optimise the enterprise according to the new possibilities introduced by the new NIS. In other words: how to realise the potential of efficiency improvements? The presentation will give some answers to this relatively complex approach. After the implementation there are now less than 150 employees in the company. The Smallworld NIS and the local Smallworld distributor both met all the expectations set by TEV Nett AS.

Future plans include a focus on data quality and continued expectations for the local distributor Smallworld Systems AS. Major decisions in developing the future system are based on new requirements arising from the continuously changing business processes in combination with cost-benefit analysis.

Tuesday 26th April: 11.45-12.30

An integrated GIS system for IT-OSS in an innovative TLC environment

Dario Rosati, Fastweb

Back in 1999 Fastweb was looking for a new solution to manage centrally all data and processes concerning network creation and design of its complex residential fiber network. The classic CAD or custom based approach, commonly used at this time, was too single-user focussed and was abandoned for a more powerful and efficient solution to properly manage the fast and complex internal processes of an aggressive and innovative TLC startup company such as Fastweb. The architecture of choice was Smallworld’s Physical Network Inventory (since acquired by GE Energy), a relatively young and innovative platform focused on the inventory of communications networks.

With the support of EBWorld, a GE Energy distributor in Italy, the system has grown over the last five years from a design/inventory system to a complex vertical system tightly coupled with many OSS and non-OSS company systems. The system now has an active role in service provisioning, network monitoring and asset management processes.

The Smallworld based GIS system is the primary source for all geographical, toponomastic and fiber network naming conventions in the company. The system handles residential fiber network provisioning activities in all Fastweb national sites, and can perform a large amount of complex tasks in many business areas, ranging from fault management based functions used by field operatives, to advanced network asset reports for the Finance and Controlling groups.

Tuesday 26th April: 16.00-16.35

E.ON Westfalen-Weser AG: Comprehensive Smallworld GIS standard solution in a merger

Rudolf Bauer, E.ON Westfalen-Weser AG
Ulf Dunker, Managing Director, Mettenmeier GmbH

E.ON Westfalen-Weser is one of Germany’s largest regional energy service providers created from the merger of three medium-sized electricity, gas and water suppliers. All three companies had been utilising Smallworld GIS for the documentation of their networks except for one electricity section using SICAD technology. The many challenges of the merger process included the harmonisation of several data bases, the establishment of a new systems structure, the transfer of Gradis 2000 data to Smallworld GIS, and the displacement of SICAD including the migration of the electricity data model into Smallworld. Historically, the predecessors of E.ON Westfalen-Weser belonged to the first companies using the Electricity, Gas and Water Network Resource Managers (NRM) for Smallworld GIS. These standard data and process models are available as commercial-off-the-shelf applications, already chosen by more than 300 organisations in Europe. They serve E.ON Westfalen-Weser as a basis for supplementary products incorporated in NRM, such as network calculation, network operation, periodic integrity checking, mobile GIS and interfaces, e.g. with SAP. Thus, the comprehensive Smallworld GIS solution lays the basis for company-wide benefits mirrored in all technical areas and in the strong market position of E.ON Westfalen-Weser.

Tuesday 26th April: 16.45-17.30

Smallworld GIS IN FORTUM Distribution

Mikael Mickelsson, Fortum Distribution

The presentation will start by briefly presenting the Fortum Group as an energy company and Fortum Distribution as a part of the group, responsible for transmission and distribution of electricity. This part will focus on putting the company on the map and to give the audience a view of the main features of the company.

The second part will shortly present the NIS/GIS history of Fortum, in Finland. Here the main points start from the 60s and 70s with "documentation" and calculations of the electricity network on mainframe computers. This is followed by the start of the graphical NIS/GIS era on UNIX workstations in the mid and late 80s. Early integrations with CIS and network calculations are briefly discussed. The change from UNIX to PC environment during the 90s is the following item, together with a short description of how the demands on NIS/GIS applications have changed in the company during the 90s. The second part will end with the implementation of the PowerGrid system, on Smallworld Core Spatial Technology 3,3. This also includes mentioning the start of the implementation project of PowerGrid in Fortum Distribution in Sweden.

The third part, and the main issue of the presentation, will describe the applications used on the Smallworld application and also integrations to other system. The applications include documentation and planning of electricity network, maintenance planning, maintenance inspections on field computers and a web browser. A short description of the data handled in these applications is also provided, together with what kind of support these applications provide to the business. The integration part will describe to what kind of systems integrations has been made, what kind of data is transferred, and the technology chosen for these integrations. The integration part includes integrations to CIS or customer care application, network calculation engine, distribution management system and business reporting tools.

The final part of the presentation will shortly present some future plans and visions regarding NIS/GIS in Fortum Distribution. As an example can be mentioned the FIS roll out in Sweden. This part will also include some thoughts on demands on NIS/GIS systems and integrations in the future. This includes issues like life cycle cost calculation and reliability based analysis of network assets.

Wednesday 27th April: 09.00-09.45

Integrated engineering process with Design Manager and SAP

Manfred Fahrthofer, Salzburg AG

Having finished the digitization of their asset documentation, Salzburg AG recently implemented an integrated IT support for several business processes. Design Manager is used along with SAP to support the network extension processes both technically and commercially. This pitch shows how integration simplifies work processes and how it adds to a more consistent asset database. Engineering jobs are initiated, calculated and controlled through Design Manager. The Smallworld Business Integrator then creates work orders in SAP. This integration will support network maintenance as well as an operation processes.

Wednesday 27th April: 09.45-10.30

Asset management and GIS at Vitens

Edwin Blaauwgeers, Vitens

Vitens' mission on Asset management is: To manage the entire lifecycle of our infrastructure that supports our (essential) business processes. Our goal is to obtain the lowest total costs for the drinking-water infrastructure, within the constraints set up by legislation and regulation, stakeholders and within control of risks for public health, environment and operational processes. Asset management at Vitens aims for doing the right things and doing them right. An important indicator for us is the availability of our infrastructure. The underpinning framework for being able to improve the availability lies in our GIS-analysis. Therefore we already use GIS-analysis at different places in our organisation. Next years' challenge will be the embedding of GIS through the entire organisation, as much as in the operational level as in the tactical and strategic level. The connection with SAP will be vital to realise our goals.

Wednesday 27th April: 11.00-11.45

Integration of Smallworld into delivery business processes of Stadtwerke Düsseldorf AG

Wolf-Dieter Säcker, Stadtwerke Düsseldorf

This presentation focuses on Smallworld Core Spatial Technology and Smallworld Network Resource Manager as the fundament for the delivery business processes of Stadtwerke Düsseldorf AG (SWD). At SWD Smallworld supports the full cycle of marketing, engineering, operation as well as outage and asset management processes. This is not done by GIS alone. It is integrated with SAP and DMS to fulfill those tasks. The pitch describes typical scenarios for these processes. It will finish with a future perspective on how the use of GIS will be influenced by the deregulation activities in the German Stadtwerke market.

University degree: Dipl. Ing. (Survey)
Role: Manager Geodata  services and dokumentation

GIS activities: project manager GIS introduction, project coordinator GIS and network management, manager GIS coordination team

Customer Award: Smallworld '98 Awarded to Stadtwerke Düsseldorf AG Barcelona 18 .05.1998

Wednesday 27th April: 11.45-12.30

GIS in the extended company: FIS and mobility

Pau Cantero Gómez, Gas Natural

A key challenge for Gas Natural is to increase the efficiency of business processes. Using GIS and SIAS, Gas Natural has already gained
significant improvements by supplying reliable information to many office users. The challenge now is to increase productivity in the processes involving field crews. As result of a critical and thorough analysis, the focus is to strengthen selected maintenance processes by FIS. The field workers need to access the right information, at the right time. This solution will also address the need to carefully control all data updated in the field, to assure consistency of the company data, to ensure full business benefits.

Wednesday 27th April: 14.00-14.45

Delivering real business value in underground asset management

Mr. Marnix van Welie , PWN Waterleidingbedrijf Noord-Holland

PWN is a public owned water utility company delivering drinking water to all people and companies in the province of North-Holland (700.000 connections). 9000 km of pipelines distribute water from the sources via the water treatment plants to the customers. A major project “Aquarius” improved the pipeline asset management processes by implementing Smallworld 4 and the standard NRM Water data model. Thanks to an integrated approach that involved people, process design and technology innovation PWN gained real business benefits from this project. This presentation shows all process steps from the first contact of the customer at the call centre until the outage repair in the field. The customer service process, the outage management process, mobile field service operations and general asset management are involved. For all process steps the use of IT systems are explained. The integration issues with SAP CRM, IS/U and the Smallworld application are addressed. The presentation will go into the reasons for specific choices, experiences and challenges. New ways of integrating geospatial information into the enterprise IT architecture were discovered. The standard NRM Water data model is an important success factor. PWN is the first user in The Netherlands with a vision about the direction for the future.

Tuesday 26th April:  14.00-15.30

The Communications Solution

GE Energy

The vision and strategy of GE Energy in the communications market will be presented including a look at the reasons behind the rearchitecture of Smallworld Network Inventory and the considerable benefits of the major new release.

Tuesday 26th April: 16.00-16.35

Cooperation instead of suspicion - customer relationship in a large, iterative GIS project moving Deutsche Telekom’s MEGAPLAN to PNI, T-Systems

Andreas Kullmann, T-Systems

This presentation will outline the benefits and drawbacks of project management using Iterative development methodologies. The presenter brings experience in managing a large GIS project that followed iterative Development. He will provide insight to help attendees avoid common mistakes. The objective of the project was the migration from MEGAPLAN V2, a proprietary telco application on top of Smallworld core spatial technology, to MEGAPLAN V3, which is based on PNI 3.1. The presenter will also outline the results and experiences of the inception phase of MEGAPLAN V4, which will move MEGAPLAN towards PNI 4.

Tuesday 26th April: 16.45-17.30

NIS – the Network Information System at UPC Sverige

Göran Björk, UPC Sverige AB
Jan Lidén, Novavista AB

UPC Sweden (UPC) is a leading provider of television and broadband Internet services, providing its services in the greater Stockholm area.

The Network Information System was initially implemented as a mapping and documentation system in 1998. The development NIS started in late 1998 and the system was operational in March 1999. Data capture from paper maps was completed a year later.

Network data is stored in VMDS and in Oracle. Design and planning are done using version management and equipment data stored in Oracle is automatically updated on “post to top”. “As-built” data are thus kept in both VMDS and Oracle.

NIS is closely integrated with the customer system ”KAS Futur”, which is based on Oracle and manages customers, addresses, contracts, invoicing etc.

Automatic Provisioning

Changes in the network structure are designed in separate alternatives. When the changes have been implemented and the network section goes live, “post to top” is performed in VMDS. This results in automatic updates to Oracle and triggers initiate automatic reboot of devices in the net.
Customer orders for analog TV, Internet or Digital TV services are noted in KAS. New or changed services are immediately provisioned through SpaceNet (for analog services) or through the DHCP system for digital services.

Other functionality in NIS:

NIS has 20-25 simultaneous users and is used for:

• Gazetteering
• Tracing
• Penetration reports
• Error handling and reporting
• Design and planning
• Network restructuring
• Schematics
• Marketing and sales support
• Network maintenance
• Monitoring and control

Wednesday 27th April: 09.00-09.45

Network engineering& operation with Smallworld Network Inventory

Jörg Flatten, NetCologne

NetCologne was founded in 1994 and is a regional telecommuncations company in the administrative district of Cologne in Germany. NetCologne is a telecommunication network carrier and a full service provider in all fields of fixed network communication.

NetCologne has used Smallworld Network Inventory (PNI 3.1, LNI 1.5 and NIG 2.0) since 2000. Smallworld Network Inventory is the major planning and documentation tool for the complete network inventory. Inside plant data as well as outside plant data and all kind of transmission media (coax, copper and fiber) are modelled and maintained within this central system.

Smallworld Network Inventory supports the vital business processes for strategic network extension planning, new customer connection and network operation, monitoring and fault management.

Strategic network extension planning and new customer connection comprises the visual verification of the profitability, the detailed planning with Smallworld Network Inventory’s Job Manager of the passive network elements, the detailed planning of the active network elements, the automatic generation of the table of tasks and materials for the RFQ (request for quotation) out of Smallworld Network Inventory, the automatic evaluation of the bids, the project kickoff, the project monitoring and finally the project acceptance, the documentation and the hand over to network operation.

Network operation, monitoring and fault management comprises all operational business processes and requires 7 x 24 hours availability and the usage of mobile clients.

Departments and main business processes supported by Smallworld Network Inventory

Smallworld Network Inventory is integrated with a lot of other systems by using different kind of integration technologies. Among others there are interfaces to Oracle (global address server, etc.), AND (Antenna Network Design) for RF design and Trimbles GeoExplorer CE GPS handheld for field data capturing.

Interfaces and data interchanged with Smallworld Network Inventory

Wednesday 27th April: 09.45-10.30

Telecommunications Network Inventory System – the OSS basement

Karel Hodan, TietoEnator

Based on real experiences of telco project deployments, TietoEnator recognises the importance of Network Inventory as part of a "Global IT Solution" in the area of Telco Operations Supports Systems (OSS). This presentation will discuss some common requirements of network inventory systems and how TietoEnator, working with two particular communications operators who have recently merged, are helping to combine their network inventory solutions based on Smallworld.

Wednesday 27th April: 11.00-11.45

Iberdrola’s Integrated Optical Cable System (SICOID)

Enrique Garcia Garcia – Iberdrola
Javier Rodriguez Roncero – Telvent

The Telecom Sector in Spain is involved in a consolidation process where operative efficiency is critical in order to survive.

In August 2003, Iberdrola decided to invest in an IT System, called SICOID (Iberdrola’s Integrated Optical Cable System), conceived to manage more efficiently the optic fiber network, increasing service quality and customer service. The selected partner for this project was Telvent. Based on Smallworld (PNI) technology and Telvent’s network management expertise, SICOID has become one of the core IT systems supporting Iberdrola’s Telecom Network Construction, Operation and Management.

Wednesday 27th April: 11.45-12.30

The history of how and why: Baneteles implementation of PNI and LNI

Morten Moe, Smallworld Norway

A fast growing company realises the need for an inventory system by the time the system should have been in place. Why did Banetele choose the Smallworld platform and applications?

The network is Banetele’s primary production tool, an asset which the company has invested close to 500 millions Euros in. The control over this infrastructure is the key to efficient and profitable operation of this network. It is of vital importance that the knowledge about the network is continuously updated and available to everyone that has a need for information about the network, and that the documentation supports the operational process of the operator.

Banetele started the implementation of PNI and LNI in 1999, and has since followed the upgrades of the products. Today they have deployed 30 plus licences, with additional web access (IAS) and Spatial Intelligence. The logical description of the SDH fibre network was the first to be completed and become operational, but in parallel the physical details of the 12000 km fibre network and sites were also documented – one of the key benefits being the capability to document equipment from different vendors in the same system.

The paper will explain some of the decisions taken in implementing PNI and LNI for managing a nationwide fibre network.

Wednesday 27th April: 14.00-14.45

Smallworld 4™ Network Inventory Demonstration

The new release of Smallworld Network Inventory will be demonstrated showing the new functionality and benefits of the redesigned user interface. With a focus on improving productivity of users performing planning and engineering tasks, this major new release will provide even greater return on investment to GE Energy’s communication’s customers.

Wednesday 27th April: 09.00-09.45

Integration Strategy

John Abram, GE Energy

Global competition and lower market entry barriers are forcing Utility & Telecomm companies to look at new ways to compete in an increasing competitive environment. These companies see future success by adopting technology that enables them to increase their overall operational throughput, following the digitization and automation of many operational tasks throughout the 90s.

John will introduce the key characteristics of the business's new Integration Solution Vision, which is focused on enabling centralized, industry-standard connectivity and services between GE's Products and 3rd Party solutions. By leveraging industry-standard mechanisms, such as HTTP, Web Services, JMS, and leveraging the functionality already built into its primary Geospatial solution, such solutions enable customers to improve the operational through-put between the various adjoining systems.

Wednesday 27th April: 09.45-10.30

Integration of NIS, Workforce Management System and SAP at Linz

Rudolf Durstberger, Managementservice Linz GmbH

At the liberalised Austrian electricity market network tariffs are reduced by the Austrian regulator E-Control. Cost management therefore is the most important challenge for the distribution business.

At Linz AG, a multi-utility company of Upper Austria , optimisation of the business processes of the distribution companies is the main task to reduce network costs. The life-cycle processes of the network facilities are supported by a combination and integration of IT-systems, where the SCADA system, the network information system NIS, the workforce management system and SAP are the core systems.

The planning process for network facilities is based on NIS. The construction, maintenance and outage management are based on NIS, the workforce management system and SAP. The operation of the electricity network is based on SCADA system and Distribution Management System for the high and middle voltage range and the NIS, as the leading system for the basic data of network facilities.

In our telecom business sector the IT-integration goes even further. In combination with the network processes mentioned above, sales and marketing processes are supported too.. As a part of the telecom business the marketing and sales processes for our Power Line Communication business are supported by Spatial Intelligence analyses and the integration of NIS, the IS-U accounting system and CRM of SAP for customer care.

Manager of Technical Informatics
Linz AG, a multi-utility company in Upper Austria Linz, Austria
Responsible for the NIS-projects in Linz AG and for the migration of
Intergraph-GIS of gas, water and waste water to Smallworld.

Wednesday 27th April 2005: 11.00-11.45

Geodata Online - eCommerce solution for the Federal State of Hessen HZD

Jürgen Knab, Hessisches Landesamt für Bodenmanagement und Geoinformation

Geodata Online is an integrated solution, built on Smallworld and Intershop Enfinity technology. It is the fundamental part of the Geodata infrastructure and part of the eGovernment program of the Federal State of Hessen, Germany. Geodata Online provides an internet shop with online access to five million land parcels and associated property information, stored in a Smallworld on Oracle application. Customers such as banks, notaries, utilities or commercial geodata servers can now order real estate data for downloading, or access it online through Open GIS services. This presentation focuses on the use-cases and services supported by this application and gives an overview of the solution architecture.

Jürgen studied geodesy at university of Darmstadt, joined the cadastral services of Hessen in 1977,
Since 2003 department manager for geo-information and geo-data management of "Landesamt für Bodenmanagement und Geoinformation" of the state of Hessen, head of steering council for project "Geodaten online".

Wednesday 27th April: 11.45-12.30

Smallworld Spatial Intelligence - What can it do for your organization?

Jacqui Cadell, GE Energy

Smallworld Spatial Intelligence software provides organizations with the ability to interpret crucial business, financial and operational data together with their network infrastructure. Smallworld Spatial Intelligence transforms these separate resources into a rich decision-support and analysis system that is flexible enough to be used by everyone in the organization. Clear meaning is added to corporate business information by analysing it in association with the infrastructure model. Results are then shared throughout the enterprise as a variety of electronic or printed reports and maps. This presentation will also explore useful functionality that may currently be overlooked by many users.

Wednesday 27th April: 14.00-14.45

SW.NET - Create Web, mobile and smart clients for SW

Dariusz Olszewski , Globema

Easy access to Smallworld-based network inventory systems using Internet and mobile technologies improves core business processes of network companies. In order to simplify implementation of various task-oriented applications that can access Smallworld databases through Internet Application Server (SIAS), a software framework (SW.NET) has been developed. SW.NET adapts SIAS to the Microsoft .NET platform. Predefined components facilitate the implementation of

Web applications according to specific user requirements. A Web Services layer allows development of mobile and smart clients targeted at different execution environments such as PCs, PDAs, mobile and smart phones. SW.NET speeds up development of Web and mobile applications and decreases maintenance costs due to its modern component architecture.

The concept, architecture as well as the main components of the framework will be presented. Sample applications to support various business processes will be demonstrated. The presentation will show also how utilizing SW.NET leverages investment in code and data of a Smallworld inventory system.