Will Develop Aerial Inspection And Vegetation Management Software

After a successful pilot program, Cross Texas Transmission has engaged Think Power Solutions to develop a comprehensive vegetation management inspection application using Think Power's lightweight suite of software services.  Following the massive blackout that occurred in 2003 leaving over 50 million people throughout the northeastern US and parts of Canada without power for days, a national reliability standard FAC-003 was implemented which requires annual vegetation patrols of key transmission lines.  Think Power's powerful set of field and office tools manages the entire process cycle from aerial inspection to ground patrol to completed work.

For many utilities, performing these inspections can be a slow, manual process involving many hours to ensure proper compliance. In the connected age, mobility and analytics are transforming many aspects of our industry, and CTT and Think Power are leading the industry by seamlessly integrating modern technology into their everyday work.  "Think Power Solutions has provided a powerful solution through their software," said Eric Schroeder, Assistant Vice President at Cross Texas Transmission.  "It has greatly simplified the process of documenting vegetation issues and completing work, ensuring compliance in an increasingly challenging regulatory environment," said Cameron Fredkin, Vice President at CTT's parent company, LS Power.

The software encompasses mobile data collection by crews and a market-leading dashboard solution, Think Power ONE, that reports current activities as well as performs historical analysis.  Features of the software include field data collection on any GPS enabled smart phone or tablet, a quick inspection interface tailored for aerial helicopter inspections, mobile forms for documenting vegetation field work, creating work requests, QC checks, and a powerful set of web based dashboards to view field activities, monitor work progress, and perform historical analysis.

"Some of the key challenges in Utility Vegetation Management on the software side include bloated and complex software, time consuming deployments and poor mobile tools for field reporting. Think Power Solutions with its industry-leading Unified Vegetation Management software addresses these key challenges. It helps Utilities easily collect, process and interpret data and provide actionable intelligence to drive process improvement and better project management," said Hari Vasudevan, founder of Think Power Solutions.

(Source: Joint news release)

FMI: www.crosstexas.com, www.thinkpowersolutions.com