Industry Articles

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• Corporate CIO Staffs Are Confused About Interoperability, And They Are Not Alone!

  

  Rik Drummond, CEO and Chief Scientist, Drummond Group Inc.

  05.08.08 - The software purchasing community requires interoperable products in their networks, value and supply chains that install easily to begin intercommunicating with other like products in a straight forward manner. This frequently is not the case even with products that call themselves interoperable, and this may costs the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional IT expense.
  

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• Documentation and Training - The Next Edge in Business Resiliency

  

  Peter Curtis, President, Power Management Concepts, LLC

  04.24.08 - Spending millions of dollars on business resiliency and reliability is a good start, especially when you know your organization can lose a massive amount of money if downtime occurred precisely at the right processing moment. Reliability and facility infrastructure health is not guaranteed simply by investing in and installing new equipment.
  

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• A Pragmatic Approach to Successful EAM Implementation in the Energy and Utilities Industry

  

  Michael Blalock, Director of Business Development, Utilities, IFS North America

  04.10.08 - In the face of decreased capital spending and lower profits, it is not surprising that energy and utility managers are looking to technology and automation, including enterprise asset management (EAM) applications, for their salvation. Unfortunately, the business applications chosen are only tools, and do not guarantee success.
  

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• Does a Service-Oriented Architecture Make Sense for Energy Trading and Risk Management?

  

  Louis Caron, Principal, RiskAdvisory
  Dominic Pazzula, Lead Consultant, Talon Risk, Inc.

  03.27.08 - Service-Oriented Architecture, or SOA, is one of the hottest buzz-words in IT. But what is an SOA and why is it important to companies needing energy risk management solutions?
  

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• Addressing GHG can Facilitate Siting Coal-Fired Power Plants

  

  Richard Goodwin, Environmental Engineering Consultant

  03.13.08 - During the last several months, thousands of megawatts of new coal-fired power plants have been delayed or cancelled (e.g. Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, and Idaho). An often-cited, recent Kansas decision denied an air permit to Sunflower Electric Power due to the absence of CO2 removal.
  

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• NERC / CIP Cyber Security: Leveraging Existing Controls to Secure the Enterprise

  Kevin McDonald, Senior NERC Cyber Security Analyst, ICF International

  02.28.08 - On January 17, 2008, FERC approved the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Critical Infrastructure Protection NERC Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Cyber Security Standards. In a 200+-page ruling, FERC outlined the comments and responses to several key areas in the CIP standards.
  

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• Finance Transformation and the Role of BPO - A Utilities Industry Perspective

  

  Jim O'Connor, Principal, CFO Services, Archstone Consulting
  Jason Balogh, Principal, Archstone Consulting

  02.14.08 - So, your organization is currently pursuing "finance transformation" or has already undergone the change and is enjoying the benefits. To be sure, the value proposition for finance transformation is more present than ever.
  

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• Simple Payback: The Wrong Tool for Energy Project Analysis?

  

  Christopher Russell, Principal, Energy Pathfinder Management Consulting, LLC

  01.24.08 - Industrial decision-makers everywhere depend on "payback" as a way to evaluate proposed investments in their facilities. Compared to more sophisticated financial measures such as net present value and internal rate of return, payback is comparatively simple to understand and calculate -- perfect for "back of the envelope" analysis.
  

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• Does Software as a Service Work for the Meter to Cash Business?

  Frank Hoogendoorn, Senior Director, Business Solutions, Cognera Corporation

  01.10.08 - The analogy was excellent. I was at a conference listening to Gary Hoover, of Hoover Online fame, draw a parallel between tsunamis and business trends. Tsunamis may seem like sudden events that appear without warning; but they are actually the result of plate tectonic activities that have taken place, days, weeks and even months beforehand.
  

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• Managing Sustainable Growth

  

  Pradeep Roy, Senior Consultant, Energy & Utilities, Infosys Technologies Ltd

  12.28.07 - In recent years, shareholders and interest groups are questioning corporations, energy and utility companies in particular, to report on how they are dealing with various environmental and social issues. This is driving energy and utility corporations to bring about greater transparency relating to reporting on environmental performance and sustainable development.
  

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