Snohomish County Public Utility District Automates Callout With ARCOS to Reduce Duration of Power Outages and Water Leaks

COLUMBUS, OH--(Marketwired - May 22, 2013) - Snohomish County Public Utility District (PUD) has begun using the Software-as-a-Service ARCOS Suite to automatically call and assemble its utility crews to restore power and repair water leaks. Before automating its callout process, PUD Energy Control Dispatchers maintained paper lists of electric linemen and water servicemen who could take a callout, also known as a request for emergency or special work at an unusual time or place.

When dispatchers now receive information about an outage or a leak, they use the ARCOS callout and scheduling software to alert crews in seconds. The system describes the trouble to linemen and servicemen via mobile phone, pager, home phone, text or email. The automatic call for crews electronically mimics the callout process and precisely follows any workplace agreements in place. The system also tracks which workers answer a callout and keeps a record of which employees are at a job site, in training, on vacation or sick. 

According to Electric Light & Power magazine, assembling and dispatching crews faster can reduce storm CAIDI (customer average interruption duration index) by up to 30 minutes because crews get to the scene of trouble faster.

"We anticipate our outage times will be reduced," said Roger Bauer, senior manager, Regional Design and Construction Services for Snohomish County Public Utility District.

Approximately 300 employees in the line and water departments as well as customer service will be part of PUD's new automated callout system. PUD managers say the automated callout system is a way to make internal processes efficient. The utility felt its outage- and leak-response metrics were good, but managers wanted to make those metrics great. The ARCOS system will also ensure 100-percent compliance with PUD's union agreements for callout.

About ARCOS, Inc.
Twenty-one of the top 25 U.S. utilities rely on the ARCOS^(SM) Callout and Scheduling Suite. When the power goes out, a gas leak is reported or another emergency occurs, the award-winning, SaaS-based ARCOS Suite instantaneously finds, assembles and tracks repair crews, reducing outage interruptions and improving restoration time for electric, gas and power plant utilities. For more information, visit www.arcos-inc.com or call 614-396-5500.