NiSource Subsidiary to Deploy Ubisense Damage Assessment to Bolster Storm Restoration Efforts and Support Electric Operations

Cambridge, UK — September 28, 2015 — Ubisense Group plc (AIM: UBI), a leader in enterprise location intelligence solutions, announced today that Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) a subsidiary of NiSource Inc. (NYSE: NI) – a Fortune 500 company that provides energy to nearly 4 million customers in the United States – is the latest utility to purchase myWorld Damage Assessment. The Ubisense solution will streamline the company’s field data collection process during storm restoration enabling NIPSCO to help restore power faster and more predictably. The company will roll out myWorld Damage Assessment later this year.
 
“Our customers depend on a reliable source of electricity, and we have to be prepared for outages caused by storms or other emergency scenarios,” said NIPSCO’s senior vice president of engineering, Russ Atkins. “myWorld Damage Assessment helps to empower our employees in the office and the field to better communicate and share information in near real-time.  With this technology we will have increased visibility about damaged areas and infrastructure to make swift, informed decisions that will help streamline the restoration processes.”
 
If disasters, often weather-related, cause outages, NIPSCO can help reduce repair times, improve System Average Interruption Duration Index scores and make quicker decisions about mutual aid requests.  Aggregating critical assessment information as it is collected in the field will also help enable the utility to improve the accuracy of its estimated restoration time predictions, which can greatly improve a customer’s experience and satisfaction during outages.
 
“Damage assessment is a critical part of storm restoration; time savings can be made by speeding up traditionally manual processes to give information to the control center as it’s gathered,” said Jay Cadman, vice president of networks industry strategy, Ubisense. “By moving from paper and radio to electronic tablet-based, integrated damage assessment, utilities like NiSource can realize many tangible benefits.”
 
Some of the benefits provided by myWorld Damage Assessment include:

• Dramatically faster data entry and improved data accuracy with smart forms
• Reduction in the time required to complete both the sample-based and complete assessments due to real-time electronic transmission of data from devices in the field
• Enhanced quality of data reported with media types such as photos included in assessments
• Eliminating time previously required to bring manual assessment information back to the central office for transcription
• Faster decisions to mutual aid requests due to quicker access to assessment data
• Faster repair times by integrating asset data with higher quality materials information to get the right materials to the right place at the right time

Contact Information

Stephanie Rogers

Marketing Communications Manager

Ubisense

Contact via E-mail