Welcome Your New Expert Interview Series: Robert Schultz, New Expert in the Digital Utility Group – [an Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Expert Interview]

In this interview, Robert shares his journey into the utilities industry and explains why GIS has become such a crucial component of effective utility operations. He discusses the growing demands of grid modernization, the need for better data integration across enterprise systems, and the role digital construction management plays in addressing these challenges.

If you’re interested in how utilities are tackling data challenges and preparing for the future, Robert’s expertise offers valuable perspectives you won’t want to miss.

Matt Chester: Welcome to Energy Central as one of our Featured Experts! I would love to give you a chance to have the community get to know you, so please start by introducing yourself, sharing your role in the power sector, and maybe what your key areas of interest and expertise are?

Robert Schultz: Thank you for the opportunity to discuss my role in the Electric Utility Industry and some of the key areas that are of high interest to me. I began my career as an Industrial Engineer in a major Electric Utility in the NYC area focused on Work Management and process improvement. Following on, I moved to a number of Electric Utilities and took on roles in Operations, Process Improvement, Work Management, GIS, and OMS system implementation. As the Manager of GIS, I became intimately involved in the entire Work Order life cycle, dealing with the challenges of obtaining W.O. data on a timely basis and interpreting / deciphering /updating the As-built data into GIS for use by the downstream users of this mission critical data.

In my current role with Locusview, I’m utilizing my 40+ years of experience in the Electric Utility Industry and working closely with our Product Developers and other staff to ensure  that our Digital Construction Management platform provides utility customers with a robust set of tools that are easy to use by the field staff and enable near real-time reporting of newly installed assets into GIS and the various Systems Of Record .

MC: Can you share a bit about your journey into the utilities industry? What inspired you to focus on GIS and its applications for utilities? 

RS: Back in 2000, I had just successfully completed the implementation of MAXIMO WMS and focused on supporting the WMS application for my Utility. As the Electric Distribution – Subject Matter Expert, I was focused on ensuring that the completed work order and the As – built processes were functioning properly and the entire closeout process was working effectively.

It was during this period that I was selected to lead the GIS application selection and implementation project. Through this project, I became intimately involved in the existing mapping process (warts and all) and the value of a fully connected data model represented in the ESRI /ArcFM GIS application. This implementation project included both the GIS application implementation and a full field inventory data collection effort.

MC: Can you highlight a recent project or initiative at Locusview where GIS played a pivotal role in improving utility operations?

RS: As a provider of digital construction management platform for utilities, every project at Locusview includes collecting near real-time, high accuracy location and high-fidelity asset data in GIS. As utilities are addressing programs like Undergrounding, Storm Hardening and Grid Modernization efforts, the volume of new assets installed is growing exponentially. The existing manual work order closeout process employed by many utilities cannot keep pace with this volume of work and significantly impedes the downstream systems from working to their peak efficiency. 

One project that comes to mind is a large T1 electric utility customer on the East coast who was in the midst of a number of Enterprise software upgrades, including implementing SAP for work management and AUD for graphic work design. They saw a gap in communicating spatial changes to GIS, which is such a common problem. They also realized there was no true owner of the process of getting good data into GIS, end-to-end.  A lot of departments were involved – from design to construction operations, to GIS to contractor management, but none were focused on the overall business value of getting that mission critical data into GIS and ultimately ADMS.  They aligned their organization and identified GIS as the owner and are well on their path to making a huge difference in the quality of their data when they roll out digital construction management in the first half of 2025. 
 

MC: What role does spatial analysis play in addressing emerging issues such as grid resilience, extreme weather events, or renewable energy integration?

RS: Simply stated, Utilities must be able to rely on their Systems of Record (I.e., GIS, OMS and ADMS) to manage their T&D systems effectively. If their GIS does not contain near real time operational status and data, they will not be able to optimize their operations. Many utilities rely on their GIS as the basis for any new Work Order Design efforts, additionally, Utility Outage Management Systems rely heavily on circuit connectivity models extracted from their GIS application. From a safety perspective, U/G facility Mark Out Services also rely on accurate GIS / Mapping data to locate U/G Utility assets to ensure both worker and customer safety during work order construction activities.

If the GIS data is incorrect, missing or incomplete, then any operational or safety decisions made by downstream users will be suboptimal and potentially dangerous for the workers and put the customer at risk!

MC: What are you excited about when it comes to becoming a part of the Energy Central Community?

RS: I have spent my entire career in the Electric Utility Industry working toward the modernization of the design, construction, and Work Order / As-Built closeout process. In the last 20 + years, I have concentrated my efforts delivering operational information throughout the utility organization through GIS and WMS applications.  While a lot of progress has been made, I am looking forward to working with the Energy Central Community to further explore how Utilities can move forward with drastically improving how Work Order > As-Bilting data is reported, and all of the essential data is quickly and accurately processed into GIS & WMS.

MC: What value do you hope to bring to your peers and what are you hoping you will get out of it personally?

RS: With all of the planned growth in the Electric Utility Industry, billions of dollars in new and upgraded assets are going to be installed into the T&D systems across North America. The existing data collection methods used by Utilities will never be able to keep up with this massive growth. I am looking forward to exploring the challenges faced by the Utility Industry to quickly and accurately report this information and ensure that all of the downstream systems like ADMS, OMS and various Systems of Record are kept current with the daily changes to the T&D network. Without reimagining their field reporting requirements, Utilities will continue to struggle to manage their T&D systems and lose some of the benefits from new applications like ADMS and DERMS.

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Thanks to Robert for joining me for this interview and providing a wealth of insights and expertise to the Energy Central Community. You can trust that Robert will be available for you to reach out and connect and ask questions as an Energy Central member, so be sure to make him feel welcome when you see her across the platform.

Other expert interviews in this series can be read here, and if you are interested in becoming an expert, you can reach out to me or  apply here.