AUD has become central to design work at SCE, enabling standardization, automation, and more responsive user support.
Southern California Edison (SCE), one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, supports a vast and diverse territory across 50,000 square miles. To streamline its design workflows and better support its distributed workforce, SCE turned to Automated Utility Design (AUD) from SBS.
Today, SCE has approximately 1,100 AUD users across internal teams and contractors, including over 400 planners, over 250 designers, and nearly 400 contractor users.
“Instead of just fixing the problems and being very reactive to situations, we’re now able to be more proactive. We’re able to do more training for our end users and support them more accurately and more quickly when they need help.” – Peggy Francis, Manager, Programs & Systems
Incremental Rollouts and Continuous Improvement
As a long time AUD user, the design program has continued to evolve, with regular updates to introduce enhancements. In 2024, SCE completed three new configuration releases, including a release solely focused on transmission design.
“As we are updating or releasing new builds, we’re making sure we have the latest AUD version. This is to prevent the 10-year gap we had prior to our design software refresh project.” – Marvi Dominguez, Sr. Specialist, Programs & Systems
Scalable Support with Internal Tools and Training
To manage a large and growing user base, SCE developed a structured support system around AUD, including:
- Bi-monthly “AUD Power Hour” live training sessions
- Site visits and proactive outreach
- Written job aids and a growing library of video tutorials
- A SharePoint-hosted OneNote knowledge base accessible across internal and contractor teams
“We are developing training and resource materials for our users… As we’re going through our support tickets, we are creating more job aids or even revising the existing ones if it needs more clarification.” – Marvi Dominguez, Sr. Specialist, Programs & Systems
The Impact of Shared Knowledge
The Team AUD SharePoint notebook has become one of the most impactful support tools. With over 800 members, it helps reduce ticket volume by enabling users to help themselves and each other.
“This is a living document, meaning it’s constantly updated almost daily… Users help themselves and help each other across the company and with the contractors. This reduces troubleshooting time.” – Marvi Dominguez, Sr. Specialist, Programs & Systems
Lessons for Other Utilities
SCE’s success with AUD showcases the importance of pairing robust tools with a thoughtful deployment and support strategy. By empowering internal teams, investing in user training, and cultivating knowledge sharing, SCE has transformed AUD into a scalable platform for modern utility design.