Software solutions

With the utility industry booming in the Middle East, it is an exciting period for software firms looking to attract new business. The changing nature of the industry, as new technologies are adopted, keeps software companies on their toes as they try to develop programs that can fulfil emerging specialist tasks.

As environmental questions arise about energy usage and efficiency, software firms are able to bring their expertise to the problem. As power generation and water plants all shift to new imperatives aimed at having a less detrimental impact on the environment, software companies are there to supply solutions aimed at improving efficiency and reducing harmful emissions.

Other challenges software can tackle include the issues of an ageing work force, and in some cases ageing infrastructure, as well as deregulation across the world.

“In order to accommodate those changed business requirements there is huge need to invest and innovate in IT,” says Bastian Fischer, vice president and general manager, Oracle EMEA. The largest enterprise software provider in the world, Oracle supplies applications for business support, whether this is entire packages in the forms of ERP (enterprise resource planning), CRM (customer relationship management) or EAM (enterprise asset management), as well as analytics and database applications.

“Oracle has not only business support applications but also very strong industry specific vertical applications, which help utilities companies optimise their processes, generate better efficiencies in their transmission and distribution, and overall save money,” explains Fischer.

“They also help the customer side, helping provide better service, better and tighter customer service relationship, and also offering multi-channel access to those processes, through the web, through the phone and through self-service applications.”

Customer service is seen as increasingly influential for Fischer, who believes it is important to empower the customers by giving them more choice on how they consume utilities, and being able to access self-service applications 24/7.

Swedish company IFS (Industrial and Financial Systems) – originally founded to develop software for the nuclear power industry – offers business solutions to the utility industry. The Middle East has been the company’s fastest growth market for the last six years.

“We have a very strong belief in our solutions, which we developed together with the nuclear plants in Sweden. You cannot find tougher regulations anywhere in the world than in the nuclear industry for software solutions and their operation,” says Ian Johnson, sales manager, IFS Middle East.

Software firms now aim to come in from the earliest stage possible of plant conception in order to maximise the plant’s lifecycle and to ensure greater efficiency and less downtime.

UK company Bentley Solutions offers engineering software solutions for utilities infrastructure, with two key applications coming in the form of the CAD (computer-aided design) platform named MicroStation and the ProjectWise program, a server application, which covers the lifespan of the plant.

“The data you generate using Bentley solutions is used across the whole lifecycle of the infrastructure. What we provide are the engineering applications which let you access that data, report on that data and edit the data, and do all the chain management for it,” declares Richard Zambuni, global marketing director, Bentley Geospatial.

With many customers in the utilities industry in the Middle East, Bentley now offers new engineering software.

“Now in the water sector, we not only offer the full GIS [geographic information system] solution, but we also have world’s most successful hydrologic modelling software – WaterCAD, WaterGEMS, SewerCAD and SewerGEMS – which we have had a lot of interest for in the Middle East as water infrastructure, both for water and waste water, is being built at a dramatic rate,” he explains.

Once the planning stage is complete and the implementation is under way, the amount of technical data, maintenance and safety instructions gathered would usually amount to ‘truck loads of documentation’, that would be put into storage until maintenance personnel have to sift through the files to find the information.

“What we can offer is the documentation connected to applications, so when they are navigating they can click and bring up the latest drawings, the latest instructions and technical data, saving you time and money on the operations and maintenance,” Johnson explains.

IT has developed at an exponential rate over the last twenty years, allowing more comprehensive set of solutions to be provided.
 

Efficiency has improved considerably, thanks to revolutionary new capabilities such as the use of software platforms on mobile devices that can be synchronised with the plant’s main system, reducing downtime in a significant way.

“We have just released a new front-end platform called Aurora, which will be completely new way of using the system – it is far more user-friendly, it is more graphic, and you can configure a file a lot better. Before, the utility workers had to sign a lot of information that they would just store in an Excel or Access database. When they move to ERP’s and they can start moving and evaluating the information in a far more efficient manner, then they will see the benefits,” says Johnson.

International consumers are also playing their part in the developments, as they become more empowered and have more choice. Usually a customer would have had little impact on the energy or water supply they would consume, but now thanks to more choice in utility provision, and with renewable energy sources, networks are more resilient to outages and there is a reduction of network bottlenecks.

“This transition requires a huge amount of IT technology because we have to deal with high volumes of real-time data, and it also changes the way utilities bill customers, which is becoming more of a real-time process,” says Fisher.

According to Osten Westman, senior consultant for IFS Middle East, the most important development is the improvement of availability and reliability.

“We now have the tools to help them cut the project lead times, so if you have planned for 15 months in the commissioning and building of the site, we know that we can cut that by one, two or three months thanks to effective document management,” he says.

“I think in terms of reliability, if you look at a power generation station, every unplanned stop costs a lot of money. Each nuclear reactor costs close to US $1 million a day for every unscheduled stop, so if we can help them reduce that stop by one, two or even three days, it can save them a lot of money.”

One of the most pressing challenges in the past for the Middle East region has been the lack of knowledge, and general understanding of what IT technologies can provide. In a region where new utility plants are constantly cropping up, the owners may not have any experience themselves to call upon, and rely heavily on external consultants.

Compared with utility organisations in other countries, who may be on their second or third generation software system, many in the Middle East will have yet to implement even their first.

“Here in the Middle East and North Africa, I’d say you would be lucky if the company is in their first generation of system – they are normally still paper based or on an excel format, and we have actually been to organisations where they didn’t know how to use a PC, so there is very much an IT issue,” says Johnson.

Other infrastructure challenges are also apparent. “We do go to some locations where you might have a telephone connection and that is it. So how do you go about deploying complicated IT solutions when the actual infrastructure in the company, and even the country, cannot support it?” Johnson adds.

The problem is that many countries do not have the infrastructure developed over many decades elsewhere in the world, yet development pushes on at breakneck speeds despite this.

“It is almost like a giant live version of Sim City, where there is a certain sequence you need to follow in order to build a utility network. Hopefully the firms involved can balance this equation, because if they do not, it will hamper the development of the region,” says Westman.

However, according to Johnson, utilities companies in the Middle East do intend and have a desire to follow the correct practices and utilise the newest technologies.

“I find in the market in the Middle East they do want someone to come in and advise them, and find best practice in the organisation, using IT solutions,” he says.

His thoughts are echoed by Fischer, who believes the Middle East is a very innovative area.

“All of these new drivers – the environmental, the energy efficiency, the water conservation – are priorities in the Middle East as much as in other regions. It is very focused and has change and innovation in mind,” he says.

The objective for the software solutions firms will be to get in at the planning stage for a proposed plant, and ensure the utilities networks are running on up-to-date programmes and platforms.

Fischer says that the over the coming years the innovation will come from the transition from transactional systems, to a real-time system – not only at an operational level but also on the commercial and customer information level.

Software solutions in the utility industry will continue to aim to improve efficiency, reliability and availability, for both the producer and the customer. The Middle East would appear to be an ideal location for them to prove the effectiveness of their products, with relentless infrastructure growth and a desire to make use of the latest and most innovative technologies.

Yes, there may be some challenges surrounding the infrastructure, the lack of prior experience in the field and an ageing work force – problems for many other industries in the region – but the lessons learnt by the software companies now operating in the Middle East should provide valuable support to utility companies, providing they look for such help in the first place.