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ABSTRACT

Technology plays an increasingly prevalent and critical role in the day-to-day management of hydroelectric facilities. In a little over a year, electronic distributions and transmittals to FERC, once optional, have become the preferred method and could very well become required in the near future. In this paper we will (1) explore the reasons behind applying databases and web pages to the routine management activities of a hydro project, and (2) outline the considerations that go into making an effective decision in selecting your Information Management Systems.

INTRODUCTION

What do tin men, ruby slippers, and flying monkeys have to do with Information Management? Better yet, what do they have to do with hydro projects? Well, nothing, but electronic “wizardry” has everything to do with it. When evaluating the goals of an information management application that is not only cost effective, but ultimately indispensable, the fundamental consideration is ease of use. That means that no matter how many database tables, lines of code, or web pages may go into a system, what really counts is how quickly and easily the system users (that is, your staff and stakeholders) can submit and retrieve information.

With remote web server access, email, and wireless PDAs, electronic project management has truly reached the hydro industry. And with these new tools come new requirements. Hydropower licensees must now archive more and more information that will be used over the course of relicensing and throughout the term of a new license. Thanks to increased collaboration and settlements founded on continuous data collection, enhancement monitoring and periodic adjustment of operations, it is imperative for licensees and their stakeholders to have all aspects of project data at their fingertips.

So how are licensees coping with this ever increasing burden? Some are still struggling with overflowing bankers’ boxes and looming towers of paper. Many are prisoners to institutional knowledge, left to hope that they can remember just where on that maze of network directories they saved the latest generation data file the day before the check for annual charges needs to be sent into FERC.

The rest have found the other side of the rainbow and can retrieve, with a few simple keystrokes, a data summary from the 1983 fisheries report. These lucky few can have all the shoreline permits for their reservoir reviewed and issued in between lunchtime and tee time for twilight golf league. They haven’t gained this luxury by hiring dozens of additional staff or waving a magic wand. They have simply developed an understanding of how and where information management fits into their organization. The following information will help you in navigating your own way out of the forest.

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT FUNDAMENTALS

What is Information Management? It is the process by which data is organized, stored and retrieved. An Information Management System is a means to collect and use this information. This may be as simple as enabling stakeholders to view a meeting notice on the internet or as complex as providing a means for the operations control center to store and access operational data for a multiple project system for a number of years. An Information Management System can typically include one or more of the following components: (1) a database (this includes GIS systems), (2) a web site (which can be an external site, an extranet, or an intranet), and (3) a program (such as an impoundment model, or connection scripts that tie a database to a web-based interface). These three core components, in various combinations, offer the potential for developing complex applications that do the menial, tedious work for you. Now that we know generally what an Information Management System is, who of those within the hydro industry can benefit and where do the benefits lie?

Owners/Operators

Relicensing - Owners faced with relicensing can greatly streamline stakeholder communications and distribution functions by developing relicensing web sites. These web sites may provide contact information and meeting schedules or can be a clearinghouse of data, documents, and online presentations. This makes the information available around the clock to all stakeholders, consultants, and internal staff, with relatively little cost.

An information management system can also be designed to electronically capture the entire consultation record throughout the relicensing process as it occurs, which in turn greatly facilitates the difficult process of assembling this record when preparing the license application. Keeping relicensing documents electronic can also significantly reduce storage, reproduction, and shipping costs when filing applications.

Long Term Compliance – Information Management Systems can continue to aid the beleaguered licensee long after the application has been filed. Systems can be used to record and track all compliance requirements, while other solutions might archive3 past studies and reports for use in future compliance filings. Maintaining an electronic clearinghouse over the 30-50 year term of a license provides considerable efficiency in managing future compliance efforts. How many of us spent hours or days trying to find the single copy of the 20 page report that for years lived somewhere in the office of a staffer that retired or left the company eight years earlier? Or, wasted precious hours looking for a data file long deleted that while it is dated, may save tens of thousands of dollars in new studies when it is time to apply for an amendment? These are just a couple real life examples of lost efficiency that can be remedied by using an Information Management System to manage a long term compliance effort.

Other Applications – While the potential for developing other tools is only limited by your imagination, there is one application that is quickly becoming commonplace – web based RFP distributions. An example of this is construction bid web sites where licensees provide bidders with access to a web site containing all bid documents and drawings that can be downloaded and printed, and new addendums can be posted. Providing bid documents online reduces production and distribution costs, and speeds up response time—no more waiting for FedEx!

Stakeholders

Other participants in a relicensing or post licensing process can greatly benefit from an Information Management System. In today’s relicensing climate, most stakeholders are involved in several simultaneous processes; they are routinely bombarded by packages of reports and licensing documents for review and comment. Anything that can speed up the process for them will also speed up the process for you.

In some cases electronic bulletin boards are used to provide stakeholder focus groups with a venue for sharing data, photos, and positional information. Such methods may or may not result in quicker resolution of issues, but certainly affords participants with efficiencies over mailing this information back and forth over the course of weeks or months. At the same time, a running “file” of this information is developed making it easy to jump back to a point in time to review older material, compare it against newly obtained information, and adjust positions as the progress unfolds.

This is not to say that stakeholders cannot or do not develop their own Information Management Systems especially at the state and federal agency level. Many of these organizations continuously collect data outside of some relicensing process and have developed databases to improve their ability to store, organize, retrieve and analyze data. In cases where multiple agency data collection efforts are taking place, many are developing web based interfaces so data collected by multiple agencies can be entered into the same database either from the office or from the field. The result is a comprehensive data set available to various agencies (data4 sharing) and significantly reduced coordination and data normalizing to bring two agencies information into a common format. This is often data that may be useful to a resourceful licensee.

FERC

FERC has embraced Information Management, in part due to the Government Paperwork Elimination Act (GPEA) of 1996(1). With literally hundreds, if not thousands, of filings being received and issued on a daily basis, it has become a necessity to provide a clean and organized data management effort. In a matter of minutes you can file a comment letter or retrieve a license order and, thanks to eSubscription, you don’t have spend even a second rooting around the system to see if a filing has been made for your project. Similar features, such as automated email notifications alerting stakeholders of web site updates, can provide comparable benefits at the project level.

When does is make the most sense to implement an Information Management System? Why should I spend the money on such a system when I can spend it somewhere else? Sometimes, figuring out how to make the right decision can be a little overwhelming. However, working through just a few basic evaluation questions will get you on the right track.

• Resources – What are your resource constraints? Is your staff too overloaded to adequately maintain files? Has your IT budget been cut to the bone?
• Geography – Is your project team spread across a number of office locations? For every letter that comes in, does it need to be copied and distributed to a dozen offices? Are you constantly sending historical documents back and forth or maintaining multiple, duplicative libraries?
• Temporal Scope – How long is the regulatory effort you are entering going to last – is it a five year relicensing? A ten year implementation process? A fifty year license compliance term?
• Financials – Will you save money over the period of the effort? Is the initial cost worth the long term investment?

EMBRACE THE GEEK

The next line of questions may be a little frightening since they really do get to the technical aspects of system design where your input, as a system user and overseer of the project is critical. This is the time where you have to determine what are the primary

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(1) As part of FERC’s Electronic Filing Strategic Plan and Information Technology Architecture of 2000, a plan was outlined, and thus far implemented with huge success, for meeting the requirements of the GPEA by providing an electronic filing alternative to traditional paper filings and to achieve FERC’s own goals of utilizing information technologies to improve information flow and accessibility.

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evaluation criteria and most important considerations behind designing an Information Management System?

Goals and Functions

Before anything else you must set a clear and realistic set of goals that capture the primary purposes of the Information Management System and what functions it must serve to meet those goals. The follow are just a few of the wide range of goals and functions that might drive the design of a system: •

• Minimize or eliminate the need for maintaining paper files by providing centralized electronic data and document storage and retrieval
• Reduce reproduction and distribution efforts by providing secure web based access from internal and external locations
• Improve information flow to stakeholders by providing online access to documents and schedules
• Facilitate efficient communications between the licensee and stakeholders

While there may be a number of other goals and general functions specific to a given project that should be considered before beginning to develop and design an information management system, few basic over arching goals such as these will be extremely helpful in guiding you toward the Emerald City.

Funneling Down

Once you have some clear and simple goals set, it’s time to focus a bit on the specific functions you will need over the course of your licensing or compliance process. Do you simply want to maintain a library of documents for your staff or an internal scheduling application, or do you want an all encompassing interactive web site complete with library, dynamic scheduling that can be linked to your MS Outlook schedule, and varying levels of access to information depending on security rights (i.e., full access for staff vs. restricted access for stakeholders)? Answers to these questions should be considered at the outset but they don’t necessarily have to be definitive. The point of asking these questions at the outset of planning is to begin to develop a picture of what the end product should be. Based on that initial vision, you can begin to look at smaller pieces of these questions to focus the core needs and how to address them.

Critical Questions

Who Will Use the System

The single most important evaluation step for the entire information management effort is to determine the user base. Whether it a strictly internal tool, an external6 tool, or somewhere in between can have tremendous influence on the interfacing and functionality of the system. The following provides a few examples of how different user groups can influence system design and function:

• “Internal” Groups

  Technical Staff – This group is typically responsible for the daily activities for the work scope. These users may consist of regulatory specialists and resource analysts; staff within the organization or consultants. Their needs may range from access to data to reports to daily scheduling. If consultants are part of the mix or internal staff is working from remote locations, some level of secure access to the system is necessary to allow them to get to the material they need without allowing the general public to stumble across nonpublic information.

  Project Management – Certainly the overseers of the project may be heavily involved and need to have the same access to information described above, however consideration should also be given to those that simply want to be able to view a summary of progress from time to time. In this case, integrating display of some subsection of all the core information may be beneficial.

  Operations – While the technical and management teams may negotiate minimum flow requirements, it is the operations group that is responsible for the follow through. Unfortunately it is may not as simple as providing specific flows for predetermined timeframes, but in all likelihood the operations group not only has to meet these operational requirements, but keep a log of dates, times, and flows (possibly in various locations); all in a recorded form that the technical staff can submit to FERC, agencies, and/or the public. Automated integration of this data gathering component into the overall information system can alleviate the burden on you and your operations staff.

• ”External” Groups

  Stakeholders – almost certainly you have state and federal agencies, as well as non-governmental organizations that are tied to your projects. These stakeholders may need access to certain documents, meeting schedules, and contact information.

  General Public – if you are required to provide information to the general public (for example, on flow releases), a simple static web page may be the answer.

How Will the System Be Accessed

Depending on who will use the system, there are different options for accessing the system that can also affect hardware requirements and again, security considerations.

• All Under One Roof

  If those using the system are contained within your organization the options are pretty simple. The Information Management System can be housed on an internal server allowing access just like any other file archive in cases where everyone is within the same local area network. This may eliminate the need for web-based access if user interfacing can be accomplished through developing standard database forms and queries. Firewall and other security factors are also not likely to be a concern. If your staff is geographically separated across multiple office locations, a similar access structure can be implemented through a wide area network, however, web based interfacing begins to have more value if the information management system is being access through a corporate intranet and security functions are not likely to be necessary beyond whatever remote login features are already in place.

• Open House

  Basic informational web pages for public information purposes can be extremely simple. Security and accessibility features are virtually nonexistent. The only real concern is how much information is being made available for viewing/downloading, how often it occurs, and by how many users. These factors can have a significant influence on server space requirements and bandwidth associated with just how much information transfer is taking place between your information storage area and those accessing the information. As the user group expands to include those outside your company, such as agencies and consultants, that are actively involved and need to access nonpublic information, security, server space, bandwidth, and general ease of use all come into play. In essence, this type of situation requires that a number of “insiders” and “outsiders” are all able to access the site, log in securely, upload/download and view information, and they must be able to do so quickly and easily or else they become a slave to the System and can end up spending more time waiting for a map or document to load than it is worth.

PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER

Having looked at the need and evaluated the costs and benefits, identified what will be included in the system, who will be using it, what accommodations are needed for them to do so, it is almost time to build your system. However, before unleashing the troops to pound away on the keyboard while eagerly anticipating the day when its time to click the heels of those ruby slippers, you must develop a solid architecture. The architecture of your Information Management System serves as both an outline of all the components necessary to organize the information, but also will be your guide in information flow and the relationships between behind the scenes databases that will be doing all the real work and the user interfaces that allow you and your team to coordinate the effort through a few keystrokes and clicks of the mouse. The architecture can also help you prioritize what is needed now vs. what can be added on later as new applications become desirable or necessary.

As you can see there are many questions and considerations behind developing information management tools and we have really only covered the most critical. A tool that makes life easier warrants an evaluation of its cost and value and these tools are no different. By spending the time up front to evaluate needs and goals you will not only be able to identify where the value lies over time and how to capitalize on it, but you can gain the upper hand on your information management requirements, making the overall process easier and freeing your time to focus on more important things.

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Authors

Andrew Qua is a Project Licensing Coordinator with Kleinschmidt at its Pittsfield, Maine office. Andy has over ten years of experience with hydro project licensing and compliance. As Kleinschmidt’s Information Management Services Team Leader, Andy works with hydro licensees to develop efficient and effective means of managing relicensing and compliance process information and innovative means of communicating with stakeholders and the public through web-based applications.

Randall Dorman is a Licensing Coordinator with Kleinschmidt at its Deep River, Connecticut office. Randy has been working in the environmental regulatory arena for over five years and has served as Kleinschmidt webmaster and developer for a similar time period. Randy has nearly a decade of database and web site development, which during the past several years has enabled him use his knowledge of the two disciplines to develop customized data and information management applications for hydro clients.