19. October 2006
Emergency and Crisis Response in Energy Supply
In the event of disruption to power supplies, energy supply companies (ESCs) need to take immediate action by launching professional emergency and crisis management. This ranges from notification of staff and management personnel to the professional communication of information to clients. At the EUROFORUM conference "Emergency and Crisis Management in Energy Supply Companies“, held in Berlin on 21/22 November 2006, F24 AG, the leading provider of notification and communication services for crisis and emergency, will present an overview of telecommunications solution options. Christian Götz, co-CEO of F24 AG, will address the specific needs of energy supply companies and join with Olaf Ziemann, Head of Network Control at Vattenfall Europe Distribution Berlin, to present the benefits of automated notification and alerting solutions based on a case study of the FACT24 service.
Recent years have seen a host of major power outages, a particularly memorable one for Germans being the days of power cuts suffered by the Münsterland region last winter following the collapse of pylons and power lines in freak snowstorms, leaving around 250,000 people without power for up to five days. North Rhine-Westphalia Chamber of Commerce estimated production losses at around 100 million euros.
To be able to respond rapidly energy supply companies need to be prepared. Vattenfall Europe Distribution Berlin GmbH relies on a solution that is independent of hardware and software and enables the company not only to respond immediately and inform emergency teams and management, but also to deal with large volumes of calls from customers and provide qualified answers. Since 2001, the utility company has been signed up with the FACT24 notification and conference service plus custom call management solution (information hotline) supplied by F24 AG. The service notifies or alerts specialists and emergency team members within minutes and informs customers calling in about the cause and extent of the occurrence. Vattenfall reports that the service has enabled both internal and external information transfer to be optimized, an improvement reflected in increased levels of customer satisfaction.
Using FACT24 in an emergency saves an enormous amount of time in communication with all crisis and emergency teams. While a model calculation of a major emergency shows the time required for a classic telephone call-out at around 90-100 minutes, FACT24 is able to slash this figure to around eight minutes, a saving of 92%.
Benefits:
Recent years have seen a host of major power outages, a particularly memorable one for Germans being the days of power cuts suffered by the Münsterland region last winter following the collapse of pylons and power lines in freak snowstorms, leaving around 250,000 people without power for up to five days. North Rhine-Westphalia Chamber of Commerce estimated production losses at around 100 million euros.
To be able to respond rapidly energy supply companies need to be prepared. Vattenfall Europe Distribution Berlin GmbH relies on a solution that is independent of hardware and software and enables the company not only to respond immediately and inform emergency teams and management, but also to deal with large volumes of calls from customers and provide qualified answers. Since 2001, the utility company has been signed up with the FACT24 notification and conference service plus custom call management solution (information hotline) supplied by F24 AG. The service notifies or alerts specialists and emergency team members within minutes and informs customers calling in about the cause and extent of the occurrence. Vattenfall reports that the service has enabled both internal and external information transfer to be optimized, an improvement reflected in increased levels of customer satisfaction.
Using FACT24 in an emergency saves an enormous amount of time in communication with all crisis and emergency teams. While a model calculation of a major emergency shows the time required for a classic telephone call-out at around 90-100 minutes, FACT24 is able to slash this figure to around eight minutes, a saving of 92%.
Benefits:
- Rapid notification of service engineers and crisis managers often enables the period of service disruption to be reduced. In addition, emergency operations staff can be alerted in seconds.
- Immediate telephone conferences set up by FACT24 can also help in rapid decision-making and enable escalation from “disruption” to “emergency” to be regulated.
- Immediate processing of all incoming calls and accurate initial information supplied by recorded message as part of the F24 information hotline solution not only enhances customer satisfaction, but also enables emergency operations managers to concentrate their efforts on remedying the problem.
- Fewer resources are required for personnel and technical infrastructure, so that emergency management processes can be designed with far greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
