Process discovery for electrical utilities

In order to discover business processes in an electrical utilities, we have to first identify UOW in electrical utilities. UOW means that how work is assigned from someone to someone in the utilities. Let us first examine how customer can provide UOW to a utility company. Customer may make a request for new connection or request for more supply. Customer may also complain for excessive billing, Poor power quality and report an outage. Within the utilities, Likely unit of work are Read meter reading, perform energy audit, Process bill, install a device (meter, Protective switch, Transformer) , identify theft and tamperage , Set up a Substation , perform regular maintenance on a device(Feeder, Transformer, ACB, Meter), detect and outage location . Etc. UOW can be classified of types – essential UOW design unit of work. Essential UOW are the one which are very specific to the domain. For a particular industry essential UOW exclusive part of the industry and are not used in any other industry. The other type of UOW's are designed UOW which results because business developed certain practice over time. Such practices facilitate wide range of business and are not unique to one specific business. One such example is invoicing. While payment is necessary for all business, but invoicing is not necessary. Customer can make payment based upon GRN(Good receipt note) and in many industry this is a common practice . We should try to eliminate design UOW as much as possible. Both essential and design unit of work are candidate for business processes .

Based upon above, we can identify following UOW for electrical utilities:

Essential uow

1. Req for new connection
   
2. Req for additional load
   
3. Provide a new connection
   
4. Remove a connection
   
5. Handle a trouble call (complain regarding excessive billing, Poor quality, reporting about outage, fire, sparking, smoke.
   
6. Handle an emergency (large scale power failure)
   
7. Detect an outage location
   
8. Perform meter reading
   
9. Perform a energy audit
   
10. Install a device ( Protective switch, Meter, Transformer)
    
11. Performa regular maintenance for a device( Protective switch, Meter, Transformer)
    
12. Generate electrical bills
    

Design unit of work

1. Procure a device( meters, transformers, Protective switch )
   
   1. Prepare a indent
      
   2. Prepare a Purchase order
      
   3. Receive a ASN(advance shipment note)
      
   4. Prepare a GRN (good receipt note)
      
   5. Receive an invoice
      
   6. Make payment
      
   7. Request a device
      
   8. Return a device