Case Study: Avista Utilities achieves rapid, code-free large-scale network analysis with Safe Software's FME

Avista Utilities - Customer Case Study

Avista Utilities, a century-old utility serving about 680,000 electric and gas customers in the Northwestern USA, needed to perform large-scale network analysis beyond the capabilities their Esri Geometric Network was originally set up for. They faced the challenge of running complex traces across a large ArcSDE dataset to answer operational questions like meters per gas pressure zone, emergency shut-off islands, isolated steel pipes, and general network health checks.

By using FME’s Network Typology Calculator, Avista executed these additional traces without writing code, enabled new types of analysis, and sped up existing workflows. Tasks that once took hours were dramatically accelerated—for example, a steel-pipe trace that previously required 12 hours now completes in about 15 minutes—allowing faster, more frequent network insights and improved operational decision-making.

Avista Utilities

Erika Jacobs

Avista Utilities