Planning started in mid-2021 and the application for switching operations has been running in SAP since January of this year. With the new software, Grid Services and the grid control centre have made this process much more efficient. Background: If fitters need to carry out a switching operation in the medium or high voltage range, they or the scheduling department must request this from the grid control centre. This is because, whether it is maintenance or repairs, anything carried out in a voltage range of more than 1,000 volts must be approved by the grid control centre. Until last year, this request was sent to the grid control centre by Word document and email. The colleagues also replied via Word and e-mail. The agreed dates had to be entered manually into the calendar, which could only be viewed by the network control centre.
All in all, it is a rather complex and not very transparent process.
Together with Aginag GmbH, the process has now been transferred to our SAP system. The Mannheim-based software developer has been our workforce management service provider for 15 years.
"With the implementation, we have optimised a crucial tool for our internal day-to-day business. Appointments are now entered automatically, we can add comments and information or attach documents. All of this saves a few work steps and enables us to respond more quickly"summarises Florian Jansen. He adds that the process is not a finished product, but will be continuously improved. The project was the first step towards digitalisation. Further systems will be introduced in the grid control centre in the coming years and the digitalisation of switching request management is already paving the way for this.
The next project together with Aginag is the development of software that supports colleagues in the field with time recording, order processing and processes.
