Our new Operations Center is the first of its kind in the U.S., bringing electric and fiber optics communications technologies together in one facility. Even more importantly, it brings together engineers and technicians from each system, to work alongside and learn from each other.
The building itself is impressive, even beautiful in an industrial modern way. A space once used for the rebuilding of transformers, with steel beams and concrete walls, it has been made even more secure to serve its new purpose. Today, it is the new home of the teams that manage the electric system, fiber system, and field services… all under one roof. Or perhaps we should say, one bunker.
Its walls are reinforced to be storm resistant. Windows have hurricane-rated shutters. And security requires three layers of access, including swipe cards and biometric fingerprint readers.
Such a high level of security is appropriate, since the center combines operations and management of both the electric system and fiber system, as well as management of resources in the field. Not to mention $50 million in digital equipment, including a video wall that serves as a war room during storm events.
This video wall is made up of forty 55-inch high definition monitors. The content on these screens can be changed as needed, to monitor progress of a storm, prioritize work efficiently, track weather radar and lightning strikes in real time, and more.
Individual employee stations are ergonomically designed to allow people to work long shifts. Equipment collects and analyzes billions of data points from our Smart Grid, measuring the efficiency of the electric and fiber optic systems.
Dashboards give visualizations of how systems are operating, enabling employees to prioritize the most important needs at any given moment, and to plan for upcoming efficiencies – whether it be managing power costs, working with crews on routine or emergency work, new installations, and more. Always with a firm focus on benefit to our customers.
Because this is the first time that so many systems have been housed together, the planning team wanted to take full advantage of having so many smart employees working side by side.
So the space is designed to encourage groups of people from different departments to interact, to share ideas and thoughts as often as possible. To gather around the proverbial water cooler, stop and talk in the hallways. Even to eat lunch together on an enclosed, secure patio.
As our employees downtown and in other locations have discovered, when bright EPB people are close together on a daily basis, more knowledge sharing takes place. When one part of our organization explores new ideas, or learns valuable lessons – others can benefit.
Working alongside each other creates better communication, better cohesion, and true innovation – where the ideas from one area of the system are applied to a different area, in new ways. Just as importantly, the close proximity of the teams enables each to respond to complex issues, faster. Customers who need an immediate field technician dispatched benefit from the interaction between electrical engineers, communications technicians, and the dispatchers talking to crews in the field.
Among the different divisions, EPB employees work more than 1,500 orders every day. In a storm situation or other emergency, that number can triple, in the blink of an eye. But now, like never before, we will be able to work all of our orders better, more efficiently, and more intelligently – together.