84 THE POWER OF POSSIBILITY NISC | 50 YEARS OF INNOVATION AND MEMBER SERVICE She showed a colorful flowchart involving integrated NISC software solutions. It begins with a customer’s SmartHub request to install a security light at his barn. Seamlessly, automatic alerts keep the task on track as the request moves from the customer service representative who needs to create a service order and take payment to the engineer who needs to map the pole and finally to the field operator who installs the pole and light. Employees in the field use AppSuite on an iPad to manage their service orders and even to take a photo of the finished job. In a storm, that quick movement of information saves precious time. The Outage Management System flows through AppSuite — a far cry from the days when linemen carried thick map books in their trucks and utilities stuck pins in a wall map to mark the outages. Dispatchers wrote customer information on sticky notes that they attached to the map, and they sorted outage information on index cards. In the 1990s, utilities moved to mapping software on PCs and laptops. (Above) A lineman from Adams Electric Cooperative in Pennsylvania doesn’t let a little winter weather deter him. (Right) When processing meter exchanges in the field, Perry Wilson of NineStar Connect accesses iVUE Mobile WorkForce via a laptop. continued from page 81