with Pennsylvania Power & Light

Powering a Nuclear Department
Pennsylvania Power & Light (PP&L), a major commercial and residential electricity provider for Pennsylvania, also owns and operates the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station (SSES), a two-unit nuclear facility that is managed by the company's Nuclear department. In July 1993, PP&L began its search for an integrated suite of client/server applications that would use a common database to support a wide range of internal business processes for the SSES, including work, training, and performance management; equipment reliability; plant operations; radiological protection; and configuration and materials management.

None of the commercially available products contained the functionality PP&L required, had design documentation adequate to support continuous improvements, or had thoroughly documented quality assurance programs, so PP&L chose to build its own Nuclear Information Management System (NIMS) for the SSES. To develop and manage NIMS and the data it would create, PP&L chose Oracle Corporation's Designer/2000, Developer/2000, and Oracle7.

"One requirement of NIMS was that it be easy to use," says Kurt Mitchell, manager of NIMS Application Development. "Developer/2000 has the capability to provide us with a Microsoft 'look and feel,' so we chose to utilize it in our project." PP&L also chose to use Designer/2000, based on its comprehensive user interface and its multimedia business process reengineering tools. "These features improve our developers' productivity and our ability to successfully reengineer projects. With Designer/2000, we can drive future enhancements and maintenance for the NIMS project," Mitchell says.

Designer/2000 provides PP&L with the productivity and standards enforcement needed to implement focused tactical and strategic systems for its Nuclear department. Also, Designer/2000's powerful systems generation capabilities are a critical component in the rapid deployment of highly desirable client/server applications, making it the ideal tool for the development of NIMS.

"We also wanted NIMS to have 100 percent generation," Mitchell says. This means that the NIMS database and user interface are generated from the Designer/2000 repository using the available programs generators, without the need for modifications to the generated code or reverse engineering changes.

Nearing Completion
The NIMS project is 50 percent complete, and already it includes several application systems, including Personal Profiles, which maintains basic employee information; Component Management, which provides a single source of plant and component data; Radiation Protection, which records and controls radiation dosages; Training Management, which identifies and records all training and qualifications required for employees; Action Management, which identifies and tracks relevant issues and actions; and NIMS Workflow, which coordinates the tasks and data needed to improve the effectiveness of the Nuclear department. The NIMS project expects to add new application systems, such as Configuration Management and Document and Records Management, in the near future.

As NIMS nears full implementation, it promises to improve internal business processes for PP&L's Nuclear Department and to contribute to substantial reductions in operating and maintenance costs. "NIMS allows us to reengineer our work processes before developing the applications, reduce the number of redundant databases of plant information, and integrate loosely coupled legacy systems into an integrated database," Mitchell says. "We plan to continuously improve the applications in response to ongoing reengineering and continuous process improvements projects," he continues. "Oracle's Designer/2000 architecture allows us to do this with ease."

Achieves Overall Business Goals
Although NIMS is still underway, PP&L is pleased that it chose to use Oracle client/server design and database management tools. Designer/2000 simplifies PP&L's modelling of complex systems, and makes code partitioning easier than ever. NIMS also provides information to all employees through a common user interface. "We have achieved our objective of developing and deploying an application with a Microsoft 'look and feel' while maintaining our goal of 100 percent generation," Mitchell says. "We accomplished this by successfully using every aspect of Designer/2000, including the business process reengineering tools, modelers, and generators."

With NIMS, PP&L has an integrated system that improves productivity and enhances the company's ability to achieve its business objectives--including a better bottom line. And, with the flexibility and advanced development features of the Oracle7 database, Designer/2000, and Developer/2000, PP&L has a solid foundation for its future software development plans. Ultimately, with powerful, effective information systems and more efficient internal processes, PP&L can better serve its customers throughout Pennsylvania.