Author: SBS

Saving over $66M in design costs by Standardizing design and accelerating delivery to meet wildfire mitigation goals

Overview
Faced with the challenge of undergrounding 10,000 miles of electric distribution infrastructure to reduce wildfire risk, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) knew that traditional design processes wouldn’t scale. To meet its ambitious goals, PG&E implemented Automated Utility Design (AUD). This enabled a streamlined, standardized, and model-based design approach that accelerates projects and reduces capital costs.

Challenge
Historically, PG&E’s design process was fragmented and manual. With 13 design centers and over 900 estimators working across different standards and templates, inconsistency and inefficiency were common. This often led to rework, especially as projects moved between regions or teams.

“As long as the design met engineering standards and was constructible, people just did things their own way,” said Gary Parker, Estimating Supervisor at PG&E. “But when one estimator in Fresno is working on a job in Santa Rosa, local requirements can vary and that led to a lot of rework.”

These limitations became more serious as PG&E accelerated its undergrounding efforts. “Before the Camp Fire, we were doing maybe 1–2 miles of electric hardening a year,” said Jaisun Evans, Program Manager at PG&E. “Now we’re designing and installing 400 miles a year, on our way to 1,000. We had to do things differently, and that started with standardization.”

Solution
PG&E engaged with SBS and began deploying AUD, a 2D and 3D digital design and modeling tool integrated with AutoCAD. AUD enables designers to automate manual placements and calculations, apply standards consistently based on a configurable template, and generate construction-ready documentation from a single model.

Estimators in the central design team, helped pilot the system. “AUD automates and standardizes the design process with built-in validation rules to prevent user error,” one Estimator said.

“When materials or equipment are updated in the model, the design updates automatically, saving time and ensuring accuracy.”

Key features of AUD identified by the PG&E team include:

• Automated Material Updates: Changes in design automatically update associated materials, eliminating error-prone, manual tabulation across EES, spreadsheets, and standards.
• All-in-One Drawings: AUD allows designers to apply different stylizations to a single model for schematic and construction drawings. This reduces duplication and translation errors.
• Voltage Drop and Cable Pulling Calculations: Calculations once performed in Excel are now automated, including factors like elevation that spreadsheets cannot compute.
• Automatic Revisions: Minor changes such as transformer relocation automatically update related values, saving hours of manual recalculation.
• Consistent Equipment Labeling and Location Numbering: Labels are auto-generated from model attributes and synchronized across EES and OCalc to maintain quality control.

Implementation Strategy
PG&E focused on a subset of roughly 200 to 300 underground estimators before expanding further.

“We learned from others. If the team’s not ready, a big rollout can backfire,” said Gary Parker. “We’re starting small, building momentum, and bringing in subject matter experts from each office to help lead the way.”

PG&E also laid the groundwork with governance, training, and documentation before implementing AUD. “If we’d tried to jump straight into AUD without standardizing first, we would’ve failed,” said Jaisun Evans.

The team established a CAD committee, published a formal CAD manual, launched monthly training sessions, and created centralized resources on SharePoint. They also instituted a governance process with 30-60-90 percent design phase gates, field validation with survey staked designs, and QC reviews.

Results and Outlook
PG&E is seeing improved consistency, fewer design errors, and a more scalable process for underground design. Since their implementation and subsequent expansion to additional estimators and AEC firms, they have saved more than $66M in real design costs.

The approach has also earned strong support from external engineering partners. “Our AEC firms love the standardized templates,” said Gary Parker.

Looking ahead, PG&E will expand AUD to overhead hardening, subdivisions, and other work types. The company is also enhancing GIS synchronization through tools like Playback Manager and adopting Esri Utility Network and SAP S4HANA.

“This is about more than just software,” said Jaisun Evans. “It’s about rethinking the way we design so we can build safer, more reliable infrastructure faster.”

To support their GIS transformation and meet evolving design needs, Fortis Alberta selected Automated Utility Design (AUD) from SBS to streamline engineering, increase consistency, and integrate with enterprise systems.

Fortis Alberta delivers electricity to more than half a million residential, commercial, and industrial customers across Central and Southern Alberta. Covering a geographically vast and complex service territory, the utility operates approximately 129,000 kilometers of overhead lines and over 1.1 million power poles, representing about 60% of Alberta’s total grid.

The Case for Change

Fortis Alberta’s legacy design tools were no longer supported and lacked smart features or integration. “We had a design tool that doesn’t really have any smarts within it,” said Daniel Plantinga, Senior Design Specialist. “There was always a lack of consistency, duplication of efforts, and minimal integration with SAP or our compatible units.”

The decision to upgrade their GIS to Esri’s Utility Network triggered broader modernization efforts across multiple departments, one of which was design. “This umbrella project has kicked off ten different initiatives, with AUD being a key piece,” added Neel Krishan, Senior Engineer, Standards and Projects.

Evaluating AUD

The Fortis Alberta team worked with consultants to assess potential design tools and reached out to peer utilities for feedback. “When we saw SBS’s customer list, we recognized some sister companies and neighbors,” said Krishan. “We contacted many of them to understand their experiences.”

That outreach helped confirm AUD’s value and SBS’s reputation.

“What stood out wasn’t just the software,” said Plantinga. “It was the relationships. Energy Queensland, for example, said they wished all vendors were like SBS. That kind of feedback made our decision easier.”

Highlights of AUD

The team was especially impressed with AUD’s ability to automate complex calculations and reduce dependence on disconnected tools. “We saw a one-click design that draws your pole, brings in the material with cost, and does analysis like voltage drop and cable pull all in one tool,” said Plantinga. “Today, those are separate processes across multiple systems.”

AUD’s configurability also aligned with Fortis Alberta’s philosophy: “We wanted something configurable, not something we’d have to heavily customize just to do basic things, like display the color orange in CAD,” said Plantinga.

Phased Implementation

Fortis Alberta is taking a phased approach to deployment, starting with a vanilla implementation of AUD in advance of the Esri Utility Network transition. “This gives us time to train our folks and avoid overwhelming the design team with simultaneous changes,” said Krishan.

The team is also exploring engineering integration for Canadian nonlinear structure analysis. “We’re evaluating options like SpidaCALC to perform those calculations outside AUD and bring the results back in,” said Krishan.

Engaging Designers Through Change

A key part of Fortis Alberta’s strategy is involving end users in the process.

“This isn’t just a tool for them, it’s their tool,” said Plantinga. “We’ve been telling our designers: we’re not here to build it for you, we’re building it with you.”

That openness has generated a high volume of feedback. “One lesson we’ve learned is to have a structured intake and prioritization plan,” said Krishan. “The ideas are great but they can be overwhelming if you’re not ready to manage them.”

Looking Ahead

Implementation begins shortly, and Fortis Alberta expects to see major gains in consistency, automation, and communication. “AUD gives us the integrated, modern design platform we need,” said Plantinga. “It helps us build better designs, faster, and support more reliable service for our customers.”

Designing for Tomorrow: A Modern Utility with a Growing Mission

Arizona Public Service (APS), the state’s longest-serving energy provider, serves 1.4 million customers across a wide and varied region, from the border town of Douglas to the solar fields of Gila Bend and the pines of Payson. As APS continued expanding its clean energy initiatives and capital portfolio, it needed a more scalable, standardized way to produce utility designs.

The solution was Automated Utility Design (AUD) from SBS, but what began as a focused GIS integration project quickly evolved into a company-wide transformation.

A Scope That Grew with Complexity

The AUD implementation kicked off in 2019. Initially, the project aimed to integrate AUD with the GIS environment. But in the years that followed, APS encountered shifting priorities, new system upgrades, and emerging opportunities that expanded the scope significantly.

“We originally set out to connect AUD with GIS,” said Naomi Prieto, T&D Engineering and Design Manager at APS. “But the scope expanded as Maximo upgrades came into play, and suddenly we were navigating parallel system overhauls that had to land at the same time.”

By 2023, APS was not only integrating with GIS and Maximo but also rolling out an overhauled compatible units (CU) catalog, updating AutoCAD, and introducing new construction standards.

Phased Rollout, Widespread Impact

The team launched training in April or 2023 and completing the rollout by August. More than 180 internal and contract designers were trained through a phased approach. APS encouraged its engineering service providers to attend training sessions alongside internal staff, helping ensure consistency across all design contributors.

Reinventing the Way APS Designs

The AUD rollout was more than a technical implementation. It also required APS to rethink how it structured and visualized designs. Historically, multiple circuits were represented as single lines in AutoCAD, leading to cluttered and hard-to-interpret designs. While this method worked in the past, it was long overdue for modernization.

“The way we used to design just didn’t work anymore,” said Giles. “We had to rethink everything.”

Working closely with SBS, APS developed a schematic expansion tool that allowed designers to use simplified visual representations in the design while producing GIS-friendly circuit-specific outputs in the background. Designers could configure conduit and conductor details directly in the drawing, with automatic updates applied during schematic expansion.

“SBS literally saved the day with this update,” said Mark Keslar, Designer at APS.

“A cut-in that used to take 15 minutes now takes three. It changed everything for us.”

Supporting Long-Term Adoption

To support users post-deployment, APS established a SharePoint site with categorized guides, walkthrough videos, and searchable designer alerts. This central hub complemented live support channels and helped users quickly find answers during early adoption.

“We used the AUD implementation as an opportunity to standardize our design practices,” said Prieto. “The tool is only as good as the processes behind it, so we focused on aligning our standards with the system as we rolled it out.”

A Foundation for Future Innovation

As APS continues building its internal capacity to administer and enhance AUD, the team reflects on the value of tight collaboration between IT, operations, and vendor teams. The combination of business fluency and technical insight was critical to the rollout’s success.

“We were lucky to have the right mix of people,” said Prieto. “Our project managers from SBS and IT were excellent, and Justin’s knowledge of both the design process and the underlying technology made a huge difference.”

With AUD now in place, APS is better equipped to deliver high-quality designs faster, reduce field rework, and support its evolving energy mission with scalable, intelligent design tools.

A vision for standardized, integrated design

Hydro One, Ontario’s largest electricity transmission and distribution utility, serves 1.5 million customers across the province. In 2020, the utility began a comprehensive modernization of its electric distribution design process, anchored by the implementation of Automated Utility Design (AUD) from SBS.

The decision to move to AUD was driven by a clear goal: to bring consistency, transparency, and integration to Hydro One’s end-to-end design workflow. “The whole reason for going to AUD was consistency in both our designing and costing,” said Nicole Ireland, Manager of Special Projects in Distribution Design Services. For Hydro One, each design must be construction-ready and fully costed, with supporting documentation that includes everything from easements and permits to species-at-risk assessments and road approvals. AUD supports all of it.

AUD as the Hub of Design Operations

Since going live in May 2023, AUD has become the central tool for design teams across Hydro One. More than 300 internal designers and over 60 contractor users now rely on AUD to manage and submit distribution work packages. Each design completed in AUD is integrated directly with SAP for costing and work order management, and with Hydro One’s GIS system to maintain accurate asset records.

These integrations allow the utility to maintain high data integrity across all of its systems while streamlining the work of design technicians in the field.

“We use AUD as the focal point,” said Brian Winfield, Implementation Lead at Hydro One. “Designers interact with all of the supporting systems through AUD. It is how we maintain a consistent process while connecting design to cost, GIS, construction obligations, and more.”

Automating Design Rules and Costing

Hydro One has configured AUD to automate a wide range of calculations and decisions during the design process. From pole-classing and guying calculations to material selection and general contractor estimates, AUD applies complex business rules in real time.

The utility also uses AUD to manage cost modifiers such as soil conditions, road proximity, and voltage level, all of which influence unit costs and estimates.

“AUD automates what our designers used to do manually,” said Winfield. “Now the rules and calculations are built into the system, and we can be confident in the outputs.”

Supporting Users Across the Province

To support its rollout, Hydro One established a province-wide network of 23 power users and created a new AUD Lead position to provide dedicated training, documentation, and escalation support. Weekly check-ins and targeted training sessions help users stay aligned and ensure that new features are quickly adopted.

“Our power users are surprisingly engaged,” said Ireland. “They are not getting any extra pay. It is just their investment and interest in AUD.”

Feedback-Driven Improvement

In June 2024, Hydro One held its first Power User Conference, bringing design leads together from across the province to share feedback and identify opportunities for future enhancement. Insights from the event directly influenced upcoming updates and helped shape the next wave of training content.

The utility continues to refine its training, standards, and workflows to make the most of its investment in AUD.

A Model-Based Design Platform That Delivers

Hydro One continues to realize value from placing AUD as the core of its model-based design process. Designs are more consistent, costing is more accurate, and users across the province are working from a shared system that connects design to delivery.

“AUD is flexible, robust, and fully integrated into how we work,” said Winfield. “It has made a real difference in how we deliver projects.”