Success Story - a case study

Analyzing Gigabytes of Data at a Glance Improves Customer Responsiveness for American Superconductor

2003 KM World Reality Award finalist! Read more.

American Superconductor (AMSC) is a world-leading supplier of dynamic reactive power grid stabilization products and the world’s principal vendor of high temperature superconductor (HTS) wire and large rotating superconductor machinery. AMSC’s power electronic converters and HTS wire are at the core of a broad range of new electricity transmission and distribution, transportation, medical and industrial processing applications, including dynamic reactive power grid stabilization solutions, large ship propulsion motors and generators, smart, controllable, superconductor power cables and advanced defense systems.

The Challenge: Analyzing Over 1GB of ASCII Data Each Month

AMSC collects approximately 1 Gigabyte of data per month generated by its transmission grid stabilization systems (“field systems”) deployed around the world. The data from these field units is received in binary format and can be converted to ASCII, but is difficult to interpret on a point-by-point basis. A method was needed to provide useful access to the data since different groups across the company had different needs and uses for the data. In addition, since information presented with images is better understood and retained longer, the system had to generate good graphics. A knowledge management (KM) system was developed by AMSC using Visual Mining’s data visualization tools, to provide graphical and formatted table access to the data without having to view individual data points.

Figure 1: This XY chart shows customer line voltage. Engineers can
determine depth and length of a voltage sag/surge,
which results in AMSC's output current response.

Data is generated on 3 microprocessors from each field unit. The client systems that transport the data are Pentium III machines running NT Workstation and XP Professional. The server is a dual processor machine with 1.5 GB of memory running Windows 2000 Server. Development tools in use include Microsoft VC++, Visual Interdev, IIS, and Microsoft SQL Server 7.0. Visual Mining's Netcharts Server 4.0 is used to render graphics. Additionally, there are some java application layers between the database and the charting engine. These layers were built using Borland JBuilder 6.0.

AMSC service managers, planning engineers and field service personnel use the KM system as a CRM tool, providing graphical analysis based on this data to clients. The KM system also aids AMSC's Field Service Department with logistics concerning materials and tools needed for repair of field units. AMSC's software engineering department uses the KM system to ensure accuracy of data and consistency of software. Company-wide, approximately 25 users at AMSC regularly access the KM system.

Getting to the Right Solution

“After an exhaustive search of graphics packages and tools, it was determined that Visual Mining’s products had the best fit of form and function. The dynamic nature of NetCharts Server and the ability to generate many different types of graphs made it the perfect fit for the AMSC’s Knowledge Management system.”

The primary goal of the Knowledge Management system was to be able to generate graphical views of transmission events detected by AMSC's field units. This needed to be a simple, repeatable process that was also dynamic enough to satisfy the different needs of the user groups.

After an exhaustive search of graphics packages and tools, AMSC determined that Visual Mining's products had the best fit. The dynamic nature of NetCharts Server and the ability to generate many different types of graphs made it the perfect fit for AMSC's Knowledge Management system.

The initial development period for the NetCharts Server graphs was about two to three months. Once the graphs were defined, however, deployment took almost no time at all. Since the initial deployment, additional time has been spent making the graphs increasingly flexible in order to meet the dynamic needs of AMSC's KM system.

Results - with Metrics

Key business results from the system tie directly to AMSC's original objectives for the application: to lower costs, increase efficiency and further enhance customer service. Key business results included: increased on-line time, the ability to graphically show the customer an event on their system and the AMSC response to that event.

Better and faster analysis through the use of event graphs and internal “alarms” helps increase efficiency and improve customer service. The KM system includes an email and text messaging notification system that sends alarms to AMSC personnel and customers from anywhere in the world within minutes of an event. This shortens AMSC's response time, while the graphics enable a more thorough understanding of event data, as well as the ability to cross-reference data using the same graphical format - all at the press of a button.

On the first of every month a series of graphical field unit metrics is generated, including: on-line percentage for each field unit, the number of customer events requiring the unit's response and a count of any internal faults experienced by each unit. These metrics serve as a historical basis for performance measures.

Users can provide direct feedback to the KM system's developers about the system's functionality and whether enhancements (based on the original objectives for the system) are required.