Strategies to reduce outage frequency rely more heavily on capital spending whereas efforts to reduce outage duration are typically dominated by O&M spending. The dilemma for both engineers and senior managers is therefore to determine the best strategies, spending patterns and places to invest to improve reliability.
As the industry embarks on significant investments in distribution infrastructure (traditional replacement and hardening as well as smart grid and modernization initiatives), it is an opportune time for industry managers to take a step back to review their distribution reliability strategy. This Oliver Wyman article highlights a number of the issues that executives should explore as they rethink their distribution reliability strategies and explains the benefits of the Reliability Analytic Engine (RAE), our proprietary business intelligence tool that links multiple, often disparate industry data sources and applies a library of proprietary analyses to gain valuable insights that are otherwise inaccessible or difficult to obtain.