OREANDA-NEWS. December 1, 2011. In a bid to resolve consumer complaints faster during the outages, Reliance Infrastructure Limited, India's largest integrated power distribution company, has launched India's first GIS based Outage Management System (OMS) in Mumbai.

RInfra's 27 lakh suburban consumers will now experience quicker response and faster outage resolution, thus reducing inconveniences caused to them by the impact of planned and unplanned outages. The newly installed system will quickly identify the probable faulty locations and reduce the response time of consumer complaints.

Commenting on the development, Mr. Lalit Jalan, CEO & Director, Reliance Infrastructure Ltd. said, "In today's world, technology adoption in power distribution is a crucial and essential aspect for improving efficiency and meeting ever growing consumer expectations. RInfra have been a pioneer in implementing latest technologies in network operation and maintenance, fault identification and database management. We are happy to launch India's first GIS based Outage Management System for our consumers, who will now get much quicker response, incase of any outages."

Presently, RInfra uses Complaint Management System to keep a track on the status of consumer complaint, where status data are fed by the personnel stationed at the

complaint handling stations. Fault identification that plays a key role in faster resolution of complaint during outages, still depends solely on the experience and intelligence of the field personnel, who attends the complaints.

Through the newly implemented OMS, RInfra will integrate existing complaint handling system with SCADA, GIS and SAP, and identify probable faulty section prior to the site visit by field personnel.

Intelligence derived from the integration of SCADA - that will identify major breakdown in network; GIS - that will capture network details from source to the consumer supply point, and SAP - that will refer customer database; will further help in communicating with the consumer about the outages.

Emergency service officials will also be able to access key information about the outage and will be updated on real time basis, during the resolution of the complaint.

In the event of planned outages, consumer will remain very well informed since all outage details will be available at call centre and on IVR to help consumer get prompt response, if he calls up.

Area-wise, duration-wise and equipment-wise historical data on faults will further help in better planning of preventive maintenance schedules and reduce the frequency of outages.

Known for implementing consumer friendly technologies in power distribution, RInfra has implemented several leading IT based services like - 'E-Courtesy' - Automated follow-up mail service for information sought; Centralized web / email handling desk; Complaints registration and closure alerts; SMS bill payment using ITZ Cash Card; Introduction of Pull SMS services for Bill delivery complaint; new informative website; mobile bill view and payment etc.

RInfra is the largest power distribution company in Mumbai with the licensed distribution area spread over 400 Sq. Kms. in suburbs and surrounding areas of Mumbai. It is supplying power to around 2.7 millions consumers. Company has been recently mandated to distribute electricity for next 25 years, i.e., till 14th August 2036.