Alden ONE & Greeneville Energy Authority: A Perfect Partnership to Establish Clarity & Control for Joint Use Violation Management

The Situation

A regional municipal power system in Tennessee uncovered numerous violations after an extensive field audit. They needed a better system to standardize joint use processes, one that went beyond emails and phone calls to set work in motion to rectify the issue. They were facing a Herculean effort to get a grip on a backlog of violations while simultaneously improving their documentation to prove they were doing their due diligence to perform the work they were committed to within the regulated timeframes.

The Greeneville Energy Authority (GEA, formerly Greeneville Power & Light) provides electric power, energy, and related services to approximately 40,875 meters throughout Greene County, Tennessee, and surrounding counties. The organization has partnered with various telephone, CATV, and broadband providers over the years, and managing utility pole attachment requests and violation notifications has become increasingly complex and costly.

“The telephone companies have changed many times,” says Mickey Waddell, GEA’s Title System Mapper and an industry veteran with 50+ years of experience in joint use pole management. “Some of those companies have gotten less stringent in making transfers, holding up information, and eventually causing problems in communication and coordination — especially in violation management.”

GEA had previously performed an audit to understand the extent of the issue. Despite having vast amounts of pole data, the company struggled to turn it into actionable insights.

The Challenge

GEA faced an important question: What can they do with all the data from their field audit?

With a lean staff and Waddell charged with the task of managing the violations that came to light in the audit, they realized the need for business process automation to amplify his diligent efforts. To allow staff to work at their highest level of expertise, Greeneville needed a robust joint use asset management system to manage pole data sets, share information with attachers, and gain visibility into pole ownership, transfer history, pole location, condition, etc., to more effectively monitor their plant conditions and ensure public safety.

Some of the violations identified could end up compromising pole integrity and ultimately impact plant safety, which GEA takes very seriously, so time was of the essence. The company needed documentation of all notifications with timestamps to prove that it had done its due diligence in addressing violations.

To accomplish their tasks, GEA needed to proactively communicate with joint use partners. However, the old communication methods of building spreadsheets, sending emails, and making phone calls were no longer sufficient to handle the increasing volume of attachments and violations. GEA had numerous violations, and they needed a workflow engine that could standardize internal processes and send automated notifications to their joint use partners to keep work moving and rectify any remaining violations.

The Solution

A major telecommunications partner requested that GEA begin using their joint use asset management platform of choice, Alden ONE, to facilitate collaboration on poles. At that point, GEA quickly realized the depth of functionality that Alden ONE offered surpassed their current platform and took the step of transitioning

While they worried about the time it would take to migrate so much data from their field audit and customers, this concern was soon minimized as Alden ONE was able to seamlessly and swiftly migrate the previous field audit data. “It was a big deal to get that converted for us,” Waddell says.

The shift became the turning point for GEA to accelerate their efficiency, providing them with the capabilities needed to transform mountains of data into actionable insights.

Once the data migration was complete, Waddell used Alden ONE to streamline and automate the notification process about joint use field work to partners. He noticed how the software made management tasks easier by centrally coordinating the communications of multiple stakeholders. To do so, he utilized the Alden ONE “Conversations,” which refers to all communication between stakeholders around common asset data for a given business process.

Visibility into Pole Data

Using Alden ONE’s mapping features, Waddell and his team gain visibility into detailed pole information, including who owns each pole, where and when transfers occurred, and more. They can also identify pole numbers in the map view to drill down into the asset’s details or get a bird’s-eye view of assets to inform decision-making. “We digitized the paper maps and added information about all our lines and poles into Alden ONE. We know exactly what height a pole is, the type of wire used, how long it’s been there, and if there’s been any issues,” says Waddell. They can also drill down into the data to determine exactly where their field assets are located to assess pole conditions and proactively address safety concerns.

Communication and Asset Tracking

Alden ONE’s asset tracking and automation features allow the GEA team to instantly move communication to the next appropriate person for prompt attention and action, minimizing bottlenecks and errors caused by manual processes. After we generate an Alden ONE Conversation, it goes from one person to the next after each step is completed, Waddell explains. Each person can enter comments directly into the Conversation, tying all relevant communication and activities to the issue at hand, including the related contract. If any dispute arises, such as an attacher failing to pay rental fees, Waddell can refer to the Conversation comments and take action. “I can enter the Alden Conversation number and zoom in on the map to pull up the details for the asset in question,” Waddell explains.

Documentation and Workflows

Alden ONE provides GEA with detailed documentation of its processes, allowing Waddell and his team to see where they are in each workflow and who needs to be notified next.

The software helps Greeneville Electric Association accomplish their goal of centralizing every action that occurs around joint use utility assets and activities. “Alden ONE routes requests automatically to the right person. Now we don’t encounter the issue of someone leaving their job and having to track down the new person responsible,” says Waddell. Having these online records easily accessible and historically preserved is also insurance for the municipal power system, as GEA can use the documentation to settle disputes and recoup revenue if a situation necessitates this kind of follow-up.

The Implementation

Alden ONE goes beyond providing a robust software solution – the Alden Systems team is a true partner in helping GEA solve its pressing challenge of managing a backlog of violation tickets. Waddell is especially satisfied with the Alden team’s responsiveness. “I always have good conversations with them. They know our system and understand our needs. When I send a message, they get back to me right away,” says Waddell. Additionally, Alden ONE provides comprehensive training materials, making it easy for Waddell to get partners and new hires up to speed and using the system quickly The ongoing support is invaluable for organizations like GEA with fewer in-house resources.

The Results

Alden ONE ensures that Waddell and the team at Greeneville Electric Authority can accelerate work with confidence in data accuracy. By fully leveraging the power of the technology, their team can take control of all joint use work, especially regarding routine pole transfer tasks and violation management — without having to hire additional help — not a small thing for a lean company like GEA.

As a result of Alden ONE, GEA has been able to:

• Inform strategic decisions and make fieldwork more efficient by gaining visibility into pole data.
• Monitor attachment data and align it with contractual obligations to tighten financial controls.
• Save time by automating notifications for routine tasks like pole transfers.
• Track all communications associated with field work on joint use assets in one place for easy reference.
• Prioritize work by filtering and sorting violations by severity and type to maximize resources.
• Leverage analytics to identify trends to inform strategic decision-making.
• Reduce risks of future liabilities by documenting violation notifications sent to asset-attaching companies. 

These are just some of the ways that Alden ONE helps GEA turn field data into insights that can be strategically acted upon.

Post-field audit, GEA has already been able to complete over 90% of the violations they were responsible for. Their forward momentum only accelerates as more joint use partners join them to collaborate within the Alden ONE platform. In addition to bottom-line efficiency gains, the move to Alden ONE adds up to the most important outcome: ensuring plant and public safety.