Project/Program Title Meter Data Management System Project Manager Steve Ko / Orlando Hernandez Hyperion Project Number 1XC0200
Status of Project In progress Estimated Start Date 2010 Estimated Completion Date 2020
Work Plan Category Operationally Required
Work Description:
The Meter Data Management System (MDMS) was implemented in 2010 to provide billing support for Mandatory Hourly Pricing (MHP) and Reactive Power customers with monthly demand in excess of 500 kW.1 As of December 2015, 2,766 of Con Edison’s customers are on MHP and/or Reactive Power rates.
The MDMS also supports billing for standby service accounts and relays usage data for customers participating in the Company’s Demand Response (DR) programs. Since it was implemented, the total number of accounts supported by the MDMS has grown from approximately 400 to 5,600.
Since the MDMS was implemented, the Company has completed replacement of the MDMS application software and hardware as needed to address the obsolescence of the MDMS database server, and to provide for an upgrade of MDMS software to the latest version. Hardware has also been upgraded to improve performance and to significantly reduce licensing and maintenance costs. In addition, the Company’s Demand Response Management System (DRMS) was integrated with the MDMS so that interval data could be used to communicate to customers near real-time DR event performance and to calculate DR settlements.
In the MDMS program, the Company will continue to make investments in the MDMS to ensure continued system reliability and performance, address sustainability concerns, and meet the billing and data presentment needs of our interval-metered customers. These investments, outlined below, will ensure that the MDMS continues to perform its functions efficiently and reliably during the Company’s system-wide transition to automated metering infrastructure (AMI) technology. The existing MDMS is expected to continue its core function of billing support for interval-metered customers until implementation of AMI communications and metering infrastructure is complete for all interval-metered customers. At that point the existing MDMS will be retired.
System Modifications and Enhancements
The Meter Synchronization (MeterSync) interface between the MDMS and the Customer Service System (CSS) was developed based on older MDMS software with limited capabilities, and refined as needed over a number of years. Recently the MeterSync has become more difficult to maintain as customer participation in complex rates and programs continues to grow; such programs require increasingly
1 Installation of interval meters and communications for Reactive Power customers was completed in December 2014.
EXHIBIT___(CO-13) functionality embedded in recent MDMS software and hardware updates.
In addition, the Company has identified a number of enhancements and modifications to the MDMS that will improve the timeliness of billing for MHP and Reactive Power customers. The Company also plans to implement functionality upgrades, including, but not limited to, reporting tools to assist Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) as they work with interval-metered customers, and modifications to the Customer Care web portal to allow net metering customers with bi-directional meters to view their usage.
There are also a number of regulatory items that need to be implemented or modified in the MDMS’s calculation methodologies, including, but not limited to, net metering calculations and updates to rates and charges for MHP customers. To date billing for these customers has been done manually.
Creating a Secondary Database
The MDMS is one of the few information systems in the Company that is being used to fulfill data extract requests from various businesses and systems, both internal and external, in addition to its core functions as a billing engine. As the number of interval-metered customers expanded in recent years the MDMS has seen a growing volume of data extracts and queries, which has eroded performance. Customers requesting data in the Customer Care web portal have experienced slower response times and, on occasion, system interruptions (e.g., session times out before data extract is complete).
To address this concern, the MDMS Update program will install additional hardware and software to create a separate copy of the MDMS database. Various systems, including the Customer Care web portal, will be able to query, retrieve data and perform simple calculations using the secondary database, without affecting the performance, processes and reliability of the primary MDMS billing engine. Work will begin in early 2017 and be completed by the end of 2018.
Ongoing System Upgrades
The Company will continue making upgrades to the MDMS hardware and software on a periodic basis to accommodate modifications by the product developer that provide for increased functionality, maintain system reliability and performance, and retain warranty coverage and vendor support. Version upgrades will continue to be implemented and tested when they are available, and hot fixes and service packs will be regression tested before being applied in the production environment.
A hardware refresh for the physical production and disaster recovery environments are also anticipated sometime in 2018 as well as a major software upgrade in 2020.
Justification Summary:
The MDMS is a critical piece of the Company’s customer care infrastructure. Customers supported by the MDMS are among the largest in Con Edison’s service territory in terms of usage, representing approximately 20% of Con Edison’s total system load. The role of the MDMS will continue to expand as the population of MHP and RP customers continues to grow by roughly 100 customers per year. It is important to note that if customers join the MHP program before they receive smart meters as part of the Company’s AMI initiative, they will be given interval meters and communications that are programmed to flow data into the existing MDMS. Also, an additional 1,600 accounts (requiring 1,900 interval meters) could be added to the existing MDMS if the current MHP threshold value is lowered to 300 kW from the current 500 kW, outside of an AMI deployment. Additionally, the number of customers participating in DR programs is only expected to grow under REV, further underscoring the importance of the MDMS.
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Con Edison needs to sustain a viable MDMS that will continue to facilitate DR programs and deliver timely, accurate bills to MHP, Reactive Power and standby customers. The Company must make the investments proposed in this program to ensure the sustainability of the existing MDMS as customer data needs evolve and utilities begin to offer new, complex rates and programs developed in response to the REV proceeding.
Billing for complex rates and programs requires advanced logic that can technically be implemented within the parameters of the current MeterSync interface, but would be more effectively handled by an updated interface that can leverage the advanced functionality embedded in recent MDMS software and hardware updates. Updating the MeterSync interface will allow Con Edison to more efficiently adapt to new business requirements.
Over the past few years the MDMS has seen a growing volume of data extracts and queries. The information is being pulled by customers to analyze usage, and by Con Edison personnel to inform rate analysis, design, and forecasting. The higher volume of data requests is increasing stress on the MDMS database, which creates performance issues. In a recent survey of MHP customers, one of the top complaints was the slow speed of report generation.2 Creating a secondary database for the interval data housed in the MDMS will allow the Company to accommodate customers’ growing appetite for interval data while reducing the work load on the MDMS production billing environment.
Finally, ongoing system upgrades are required to keep the MDMS hardware and software up-to-date with new functionality and system fixes, and to maintain vendor support. These updates will allow the Company to take advantage of new features that improve performance, value, throughput and ease of use, and also prevent obsolescence.
Supplemental Information:
Alternatives:
o The alternative to system modifications and enhancements is continued system conflicts between the MDMS and CSS, and continued degradation of system performance.
o The alternative to building a secondary database is to limit internal business groups on their queries of existing systems, to prevent slow down and disruptions of the MDMS’s daily processes. Also, with the need to present data to external customers consistently increasing, the existing system would need to be augmented to handle additional work.
o The alternative to ongoing system upgrades would be to allow the hardware and software to become obsolete and fall out of vendor support.
Risk of No Action: Taking no action risks degrading the stability and performance of the MDMS.
With an increasing number of data requests coming in from various internal and external systems, the strain to the current system can cause slow down on its day-to-day tasks, possibly resulting in delays of customer billing. In the worst case scenario, the system can come to a complete halt, causing the system to crash. The Company also risks being out of warranty and vendor support with obsolete hardware and software, which means that it could not rely on vendor assistance in the event of a system failure.
Non-financial Benefits: Benefits to updating the current system are increased reliability, efficiency and stability of the MDMS. In addition, the Company will be able to increase work
2 2015 Con Edison Mandatory Hourly Pricing Report, p. 11.
EXHIBIT___(CO-13) PAGE 4 OF 5
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flow efficiencies by improving data availability to various department systems like Rate Engineering and Demand Response, and strengthen relationships with external customers and regulators by efficiently providing meter data content as required, without impacting the generation of customer bills.
Summary of Financial Benefits (if applicable) and Costs: Financial benefits are gained by deferring work load away from the current MDMS and making more system resources available to the primary function of calculating the billing determinants for customer billing. This would help facilitate a more accurate and timely billing of customers, which in turn would result in more timely revenue.
Technical Evaluation/Analysis: As described above, the MDMS is reaching the limits of its capacity to handle billing functions as well as data extract requests. System updates to the hardware and software, also described above, will need to be performed on a periodic basis in order to ensure system reliability and performance. Updates will allow us to take advantage of new features and functionality that improve performance, value, throughput, and ease of use, and also prevent obsolescence.
Project Relationships (if applicable): The MDMS will interface with future net metering and curtailment projects as well as the Digital Customer Experience (DCX) program. The MDMS is already interfacing with current and near production-ready systems such as the Demand Response Management System (DRMS), SAS (for rate engineering work), the replacement for the Company’s legacy Traction Billing Information System (TBIS), the Customer Care & Billing (CC&B) system (for standby billing), and the Transmission Owner Data Reporting System (TODRS).
Basis for Estimate: Estimate based on current contractor hourly rates, number of hours required, hardware / licensing costs and vendor support hours.
Total Funding Level ($000):
Historical Spend
Actual 2011 Actual 2012 Actual 2013 Actual 2014 Historic Year
(Historical EOE breakout will only be completed for Steam projects/programs of $500 thousand or more and, for all other organizations, projects/programs of $1million or more.)
EOE Actual 2011 Actual 2012 Actual 2013 Actual 2014 Historic Year
5
Request ($000):
Request 2016
Request 2017
Request 2018
Request 2019
Request 2020
$750 $2,500 $2,500 $750 $800
Request by Elements of Expense
EOE 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Labor $182 $270 $305 $120 $90
M&S
A/P $438 $2,036 $1,994 $560 $655
Other
Overheads $130 $194 $201 $70 $55
Total $750 $2,500 $2,500 $750 $800
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EXHIBIT__(CO-14) PAGE 1 OF 1 Meter Data Management System Worksheet
($000s)
Capital Request 2016 Request 2017 Request 2018 Request 2019 Request 2020 MDM
Enhancements (including Meter
Sync)
$580K $500 $500 $250 $550
MDMS Data
Repository $170K $1,750 $1,500 $500 $250
Hardware and Software Upgrades
$0 $250 $500 $0 $0
Total $750 $2,500 $2,500 $750 $800
1 Project/Program Title Customer Service System Sustainability Project Manager Orlando Hernandez
Hyperion Project Number PR.21143161 Status of Project In progress Estimated Start Date Ongoing Estimated Completion Date Ongoing
Work Plan Category Operationally Required
Work Description:
The Customer Service System (CSS) is composed of a suite of systems that support customer service and billing functions. This suite of systems has provided a solid foundation for our customer care efforts for over 40 years. New applications and updates to the existing systems have introduced new technologies, enhanced functionality, and improved integration between the systems that comprise the CSS suite. As a result of these efforts, the CSS has remained viable and technically supportable. The Company must continue its efforts to maintain a viable CSS until it is replaced as part of the Company’s enterprise technology roadmap. The Company plans to initiate the CSS replacement program in 2020.
The CSS Sustainability Program is a set of strategic efforts intended to maintain a viable CSS and support business and customer needs. The work under this program falls into three major categories:
1. System Upgrades to modernize COBOL and Assembler mainframe languages, convert legacy web platforms to XML-based modern environments, upgrade the Windows environment of CSS satellite systems such as the Retail Choice Information System (RAIS) and the Consolidated Utility Billing System (CUBS) systems, and upgrade business applications such as direct payment systems and document storage and indexing systems with modern hardware and software environments.
2. Functional enhancements to billing engine programs, data warehouse systems, My Account online self-service web systems, the CSS Desktop tool for customer service representatives (CSRs) and bill presentment.
3. Risk Mitigation efforts to identify and prioritize system risks and implement risk mitigation strategies, implement a centralized rates management platform, re-write automated tools and utilities which are no longer supported, and continue effective system documentation and knowledge transfer across technical and business processes.
The main objective of the CSS Sustainability Program is to maintain reliable hardware, operating systems, and software platforms so that the Company can continue to provide quality customer service and encourage the development of enhanced tools for customer engagement and bill management.
Work to be completed under this program will allow the Company to keep pace with customer service needs in an evolving marketplace, meet regulatory requirements, and prepare its systems to facilitate the