Unitizing Assets in SSP’s Workforce Management

July 8, 2012 — SSP Innovations

SSP’s Workforce Management (WFM) provides a streamlined process for managing an asset through its installation or retirement lifecycle: designed, cost estimated, approved, scheduled, constructed, as-built reported, mapped in GIS, unitized and completed.

This process is enabled by the use of compatible units. A compatible unit (CU) is a design element that includes the materials, labor, and equipment that represent standardized units of work, such as the installation of a wood pole or transformer asset. In addition, compatible units also include specific accounting information to account for charges based on Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) system of accounts.

Capturing the asset installation and retirement detail combined with the FERC code forms the basis for the asset unitization process. This month’s article describes the recently developed unitization functionality in WFM that enables support of this process.

The workflow in WFM is configurable to match the process and policies of each individual company. When it comes to asset unitization the workflow and functionality has typically been performed in a three step process:

  1. Assign a monthly inventory number (aka batch number) to each completed service request (SR)
  2. Unitize all SRs assigned to the monthly inventory
  3. Close all SRs assigned to the monthly inventory

wfm-unitization-wfm-workflow

The Unitization tool in WFM is invoked from the left side menu. The tool is only available to users that have been assigned the role/permissions to either assign SRs to a monthly inventory or to unitize the monthly inventory. Users can be assigned to either permission and the names of each are listed below.

WFM Role: Accounting

  • WFM Permission: Assign SR to Inventory
  • WFM Permission: Unitize Inventory

WFM users with the Accounting role and Assign SR to Inventory permission are allowed to assign multiple SRs to the monthly inventory using the Assign Inventory Number panel within the Unitization tool. When opening the tool, the user is presented with a list of all unassigned inventory SRs in the “Waiting Inventory Number” status. The user can filter the list of SRs by department (e.g. distribution, transmission, substation, fiber, etc) if desired.

To assign a monthly inventory, the user types in a new or existing inventory number and checks (✓) each SR to be included. If the user needs to be able to see more detail regarding an individual SR they can click the view button (wfm-unitization-view-button) to open.

Once the user concludes typing in the inventory number and checking all SRs they click the assign inventory button to populate the inventory number on each SR. This will additionally advance the status for each SR from “Waiting Inventory Number” to “Pending Unitization”.

wfm-unitization-assign-inventory-number-panel

WFM users with the Accounting role and Unitize Inventory permission are allowed to unitize the monthly inventory using the Unitize Inventory panel within the Unitization tool. When opening the tool, a list of monthly inventory numbers waiting to be unitized are presented to the user in the inventory number drop down.

The user selects the monthly inventory number they wish to unitize and a list of SRs assigned to that monthly inventory is presented. If the user needs to be able to see more detail regarding an individual SR assigned to the monthly inventory, they can click the view button (wfm-unitization-view-button) to open.

Asset unitization requires the actual material cost and total construction cost for each SR. To capture these actual costs the user enters the total materials cost and total construction cost for each SR in the grid. Once the actual costs are inputted the user saves the entries by clicking the save button (wfm-unitization-save-button) to persist the values to the database.

If the user needs to remove an individual SR from the selected monthly inventory they click the delete button (wfm-unitization-delete-button). This removes the SR from the assigned monthly inventory, clears the actual costs, and reverses the status back to “Assign Inventory Number”. This results in the SR being displayed once again in the Assign Inventory Number panel list of unassigned SRs.

wfm-unitization-unitize-inventory

After the user enters all of the actual costs for the selected monthly inventory, the additions and retirements reports will be enabled for execution in the report drop down list. The logic and calculations for asset unitization are built into the reporting functionality.

A small sample of the Additions report is shown below. The report produced by the Unitization tool is in Microsoft Excel format.

wfm-unitization-additions.

Next, a small sample of the Retirements report is shown below. The report produced by the Unitization tool is in Microsoft Excel format.

wfm-unitization-retirements

Once the reports are reviewed and accepted for the monthly inventory, the user closes the inventory by clicking the close inventory button. This action moves all SRs in the inventory from “Pending Unitization” status to “Closed” status concluding the asset unitization workflow.

This concludes this month’s article describing the recently developed unitization functionality added into WFM. Next month’s article will provide more detail on the logic and calculations included in producing the additions and retirements reports.

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