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ENERGY ASSETS PURSUES POLE

POSITION IN METERING OPERATIONS

METER INSTALLATION engineers at
Energy Assets are cutting their carbon
footprint with a little help from a
specialist team at Williams Advanced
Engineering (WAE).
Energy Assets worked with the
Business Dynamics Team from WAE
– born from the Williams motorsports
organisation – to review meter and data
logger maintenance and performance.
The outcomes included logistics
innovations with the potential to
reduce field engineer mileage annually
by around 10 per cent, along with
enhancements in data capture and
communication.
James Walker, Group IT Director at ENERGY ASSETS METERING SERVICES
Energy Assets, said: “As a business, we
have an innovation and continuous These data mining insights allowed improvement for our customers.
improvement mindset, so our objective Energy Assets to take a fresh look “We were also able to benefit from
was to collaborate with a partner at elements of its meter installation WAE’s battery expertise regarding
external to the utilities industry who procedures, enabling them to plan and future energy meter battery deployment
would bring a new lens to elements of resource their field engineering teams programmes and advance remote data
our metering operations. more effectively. The WAE team also communication and capture.”
“In WAE Business Dynamics, we employed advanced diagnostics to inform Steven Houston, Head of Data
found a team capable of applying the a predictive meter maintenance regime Analytics in the Business Dynamics
world-class technology, analytics, alongside period-based schedules. Team, said: “When you think about
logistics and data communication James added: “As a result, we have motorsport you think of operational
routinely used in Formula 1 to offer a been able to optimise maintenance excellence and data-driven decisions.
fresh perspective on established ways planning to minimise disruption to Our team has been successfully
of working in our industry.” customers, clarify rules around fault bringing learnings from motorsport
The performance improvement diagnosis, and introduce innovations to drive performance improvement
consultancy team used big data in logistics. For our engineers, this will for our customers over the last four
tools to help Energy Assets develop mean more efficient scheduling, with years. Energy Assets embraced these
an intelligent risk score covering the potential for a 10 per cent reduction competencies and has been able to
fault monitoring and predictive in journey mileage, and more responsive benefit from tangible productivity
maintenance, based on analysis of parts supply, which offers long-term gains and operational efficiencies in its
250,000 meter assets across Britain. value to our business and a service maintenance activities.”

last year. Mark started out his career mains gas to key towns in the west of the distribution network which I am
as Assistant Planning Engineer, and Northern Ireland for the first time. looking forward to, including a number
then as a supervisor for a contractor, The project, representing an of specialist crossings.” These include a
now part of the Kier Group, on SGN’s investment of over £250 million, has significant river crossing in Enniskillen,
network in Scotland. He made Northern the potential to meet the energy needs scheduled to take place in the coming
Ireland his home six years ago, settling of up to 40,000 homes and businesses months, which will enable the
with his wife in County Tyrone. across Counties Fermanagh, Tyrone and remainder of the island town to have
After moving to Northern Ireland, Derry/Londonderry. The final piece of access to a natural gas connection.
Mark worked as an Engineering Officer the new network was commissioned in Thanking his colleagues for their
for Phoenix Natural Gas in the greater December 2019 with natural gas now ongoing support, Mark said: “They
Belfast area and then as Network available to all the key towns. have already overcome a lot of
Operations Manager in Network Asked what he is looking forward to challenges to get us this far. They all
Development before joining SGN Natural most in his new role, it is undoubtedly continue to work hard to make natural
Gas in 2016. continuing to expand the network. Mark gas available to as many business and
He joined the project team developing explained: “There are some challenging domestic customers in the licence area
brand-new energy infrastructure to bring pieces of work still to be completed on as possible.”

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11/03/2021 08:27
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IGEMNews_IndAffliates.indd 2 11/03/2021 08:27