Telecom & Utility

Nova Scotia Power (Emera)

Customer Profile

For more than 80 years Nova Scotia Power has been Nova Scotia's main electricity provider. Its customers have always looked to them to provide safe, reliable sources of energy to power their lives.

Business Situation

NicomIT created new software so that Nova Scotia Power would always have a back up computer system. Nova Scotia Power had invested millions of dollars to ensure their computer systems would continue functioning into the year 2000. As a precaution, it was decided they should have an alternate plan in place in case an unknown problem happened to bring their systems down. The idea was to take a subsection of the account data for each Nova Scotia Power customer and have it placed in a database on a Compact Disc. Also on this disc would be a program that would be self-loading. The program had to be extremely simple to use so that no training would be required.

To operate this program, a clerk would simply place the disc in the CD drive of their computer and the program would start automatically. The clerk would be able to search for a client by a number of means (phone number, address, account number, etc) and the information for this account would be retrieved immediately. The concept behind this backup plan is that even if the whole network "went down", the personal computers would still be working. At the very least, clerks would be able to answer simple inquiries from customers and accept account payments. Unfortunately, as Nova Scotia Power worked to implement this backup plan they discovered that a CD did not have enough space to hold all of the necessary account information and a program was required. This was the point at which Nicom became involved.

Solution

Our solution was a very simple one. NicomIT used an older version of the FoxPro language to develop a new computer program for Nova Scotia Power. FoxPro is small, self-loading, and includes its own efficient database system. It will create an executable program that is a standalone program. Nicom was able to develop the program for Nova Scotia Power in a very short period of time. The program is very easy to run and the searches take place amazingly fast. At the end of 1999, a large number of CD's were created and distributed around the province as the back-up measure.

Benefits

As it turned out, the networks at Nova Scotia Power did not "go down" and the transition to the year 2000 went smooth. Even after the Year 2000 change, there were times when certain portions of the network had to be taken off line for a period of time. In those cases, the CD's were distributed before hand and the offices were able to continue operating. As a result, Nova Scotia Power has the ability to continue to provide reliable customer service even during network down times.

« Back to the Utility Industry Sector