Storm Restoration Workflow Review
Craighead Electric Cooperative serves approximately 33,000 meters across more than 5,000 miles of power lines. During a recent windstorm on March 15, the cooperative experienced 84 outages affecting 5,101 meters across 22 substations. This event provided a valuable opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of its storm restoration workflow, which has been continuously refined over the past six years in partnership with Partner Software.
Through close collaboration and ongoing process improvement, Craighead Electric has developed a highly efficient and effective storm restoration system. The process begins with rapid and accurate damage assessment. Following a storm, trained personnel equipped with iPads are assigned to outage areas, organized by substations or circuits depending on the extent of damage. These field teams conduct inspections and report findings using the Partner Inspection module.
Each inspection captures detailed information, including broken poles, damaged crossarms, downed conductors, and fiber damage. Photographs are included to support accurate evaluation and decision-making. Once inspections are completed and synced, the dispatch team assigns them to job numbers within the system, enabling the staking department to easily locate and filter inspections as needed.
Using mass selection tools, inspected poles are imported directly into work orders. A key advantage of the Partner solution is its ability to automatically generate pole changeouts, retirements, and crossarm assembly updates based on the recorded damage. This automation occurs during the import process and has significantly reduced the time required to build work orders.
In addition, validation scripts have been implemented to enforce minimum construction standards. These scripts automatically adjust pole size and class to match available inventory and update legacy assemblies to current standards. As a result, stakers no longer need to manually correct each item, accelerating the workflow and improving consistency.
The workflow is also integrated with the cooperative’s accounting system through MultiSpeak, enabling automatic creation of warehouse pick lists. This integration has significantly improved material tracking during storm restoration. Crews can now be supplied with precisely what they need, and by the following day, a complete material summary for the entire storm event can be produced.
Previously, obtaining an accurate material summary could take weeks and often required overloading materials and returning unused inventory after each storm. The current process has eliminated much of that inefficiency. From initial damage assessment through staking and crew deployment, the cooperative can now deliver the right materials at the right time, supporting safe and efficient power restoration.
The effectiveness of this workflow was reinforced when, just two days after the storm, the work order processor reached out to commend how smoothly the restoration effort went and to highlight the improvements made.
While this process represents a significant advancement, Craighead Electric recognizes there is always room for continued improvement. The team plans to meet in the coming week to identify additional refinements. Based on their experience, they remain confident that Partner will continue to play a key role in evolving and optimizing their storm restoration process.
Chuck Hardin
Operational Technologies Specialist
Craighead Electric Cooperative Corporation