The future of Utility Operations is in the Flex Ops!
Put simply, the new Oracle Utilities Network Management System (NMS) Flex Operations is the future of outage management. An innovation the utility industry was duly entitled to, i.e., having a rather distributed outage management system (DOMS), or the advanced distribution management system (ADMS), fully operational outside the control room, for scaling and fast-tracking the restoration process by delegating the outage management functionalities to more supervisors, coordinators, and dispatch/response staff via the Oracle’s low-code, lightweight, browser-based utilities outage/network management system (NMS)/(OMS) client – the NMS Flex Operations.
The client is loaded with all the core functionalities of a control room client, put together with an intuitive and interactional user interface for offering accessibility to more users, and thereby, agility to the utility teams for not just rapidly minimizing outage, but also optimizing the grid operations, the distribution, situational awareness, field safety, on top of an operational view of the network in real-time.
NMS Flex Operations’ value propositions at the functional level
- Fast build up as the storms worsen
With the rising severity and prevalence of storms, utilities are required to be scaling their restoration workforce while granting them the capacity to manage and support response teams. The Oracle Utilities NMS Flex Operations can help rapidly build up a large body of storm managers to effectively cope with the situation in real-time, while discounting the need for the main control room client software to be deployed on their remote workstations.
- Convenience, ‘portability’, and security
The new NMS Flex Operations is not a software that needs to be installed on a capable hardware. It is rather deployed and accessed through the ordinary browser. This, in turn, enables utilities to get the client up and running within a fraction of seconds, to model, monitor, collaborate, and act. Hence, the convenience, and portability.
And, because the NMS Flex Operations is capable of functioning both inside and outside a firewall, it affords users flexibility in connection choices compatible with the security policies of the utility, hence, affording the security they are most contented with.
- Unlock efficiency in workflow, consistently
The NMS Flex Operations coalesces impeccably with the main NMS control-room client as well as the Operations Mobile Application (OMA), granting the response, field, and dispatch crews, who have gone through minimum training, with the toggling and tagging rights.
- The added advantage of the browser
Since the NMS Flex Operations is a browser-based ADMS client, it can be divided into multiple browser windows for more convenient visibility, eliminating the need for multiple screens.
- Performance born out of scalability
The NMS Flex Operations model is scalable, simply because it is on the Oracle Cloud. Therefore, having it leveraged by a giant number of occasional managers and other crews, simply would not be an issue. And, from that shall come the performance boost on the restoration process, because the building up and deployment of the teams onto the high-volume events is now seamless.
