{"id":24360,"date":"2025-01-14T15:38:36","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T15:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.trccompanies.com\/?post_type=news-and-insights&p=24360"},"modified":"2025-02-20T13:43:27","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T13:43:27","slug":"what-is-long-cycle-work-and-why-is-digitizing-important","status":"publish","type":"news-and-insights","link":"https:\/\/www.trccompanies.com\/fr\/insights\/what-is-long-cycle-work-and-why-is-digitizing-important\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Long-Cycle Work and Why is Digitizing Important?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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Long-cycle work typically refers includes large-scale projects like building new transmission lines, upgrading substations, or fortifying the existing grid. Because of their complexity and the coordination needed with regulatory, environmental, and engineering stakeholders, these projects follow detailed planning, permitting, and scheduling phases. Leveraging technology<\/a> to manage these teams and keep key stakeholders informed can significantly enhance project execution and ensure successful completion of critical work.<\/p>\n

Types of Long-Cycle Work<\/h3>\n

Long-cycle work can involve complex process and technical challenges and typically requires extended timeframes to plan, execute and complete. Common examples include the construction of power plants, upgrades to electrical grids and the development of new infrastructure. This type fits into three main categories: new development, upgrades and reinforcements.<\/p>\n

New Developments \"\"<\/span><\/h4>\n

As global populations grow, the demand for reliable power infrastructure to support new homes and communities is increasing. It\u2019s expected that new housing units will rise by 2.1% annually, reaching 62.0 million units globally by 2028. For power utilities, this surge means they must plan and construct new electrical systems, including substations, distribution lines, and transformers, to meet the power demands of these developments. Coordinating these installations alongside construction timelines is critical to ensuring new developments are powered on schedule without delaying broader project progress.<\/p>\n

Upgrades<\/span><\/h4>\n

Existing power infrastructure often requires upgrades to meet evolving energy needs or to improve system reliability and efficiency. This includes modernizing aging grid components, incorporating smart grid technology, or upgrading transmission lines to handle greater loads. Substation upgrades, which are critical to supporting increased demand, can cost between $100,000 and $300,000 on average. These long-cycle projects require extensive planning and careful execution to ensure minimal disruption to current services while enhancing grid capacity and resilience.<\/p>\n

Reinforcements<\/span><\/h4>\n

Our power usage is changing, and utilities need to adapt to meet these evolving requirements. Some figures suggest that 10% of new single-family homes are being built with electric vehicle chargers installed, and about 80% of electric vehicle owners have opted to install chargers onto their homes as opposed to using public charging infrastructure. Additionally, a growing number of retail and commercial developments are including electric vehicle charging stations to their parking infrastructure. This shift requires utilities to continually evaluate and reinforce grid capacity to meet new power consumption patterns without compromising reliability.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Why is Digitizing important?<\/h3>\n

Planned long-cycle projects often involve teams of individuals to complete. Stakeholders, engineers, contractors, construction crews and inspectors all need to work together to see a project from start to successful completion. Employing technology to help manage these teams and keep key stakeholders informed can help to ensure projects are completed correctly and smoothly. Digitizing long-cycle work for utilities involves integrating a range of digital tools<\/a> to improve efficiency, transparency and decision-making across teams and processes.<\/p>\n

Dashboarding Tools<\/a> offer a centralized view of real-time data, helping utilities track key performance indicators (KPIs) and project status. They provide a visual summary of operations, enabling quick insights for better decision-making. Whether monitoring usage trends, asset conditions, or maintenance schedules, these tools help to enhance awareness and responsiveness.<\/p>\n

Content Collaboration Platforms<\/a> work to provide seamless communication and document sharing between stakeholders, internal teams, field crews, and external partners. By centralizing conversations in one space, utilities can improve coordination on projects, reduce version control issues, and speed up project timelines, especially for complex operations.<\/p>\n

Work and Asset Management Systems (WAMS) <\/strong>or Enterprise Asset Management Systems (EAMS)<\/strong> streamline the tracking and maintenance of assets, from water pipes to power grids. They provide a clear view of asset lifecycles, helping utilities plan preventive maintenance, track repairs and optimize the use of resources. This reduces downtime and extends the life of critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Mobile Field Collection Tools<\/a> allow field workers to collect real-time data on the condition of assets, usage patterns, or environmental conditions. This helps to eliminate the need for paper forms and laborious manual data entry, improving accuracy and speeding up data availability for decision-makers.<\/p>\n

Mobile Workforce Management<\/strong> Tools<\/strong> support the deployment and coordination of field crews. They help utilities assign tasks, track progress, and optimize routes, ensuring that resources are used efficiently, and that work is completed on schedule.<\/p>\n

Digital Design Tools<\/a> are used to create and model infrastructure systems, allowing utilities to plan projects more accurately. By simulating real-world conditions, these tools help identify potential challenges early in the design process, reducing costly changes during construction.<\/p>\n

Document Management Systems<\/strong> centralize important records and files, ensuring they are easily accessible and secure. These tools are designed to be useful for managing regulatory documents, contracts and technical manuals, supporting compliance and streamlining long-cycle project workflows.<\/p>\n

TRC Can Help Evaluate, Select and Implement the Right Technology<\/h3>\n

For utilities looking to automate their planned construction processes\u2014or modernize any aspect of the business\u2014TRC can help. Our tested practitioners have decades of experience helping clients adapt to change through technology acquisition, implementation, adoption and administration.<\/p>\n

Our integrated project approach gives organizations agility and peace of mind. We develop business and functional requirements based on understanding client priorities. We work closely with clients to examine workflows, challenges, needs, goals, roles and expectations. Our team transforms that intelligence into questions and an RFP and creates an evaluation matrix and scoring methodology. We take vendor-submitted proposals and use an evaluation matrix to score the answers.<\/p>\n

Learn more about how TRC helps customers design, build and administer a modern IT\/OT environment<\/a> for planned long-cycle construction or any other business area.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

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