Executive Summary
Energy and utilities firms are navigating some of the most significant transformations of any industry:
- The transition to low-carbon models
- Grid decentralisation and renewables integration
- Customer and regulatory pressure for better performance, transparency, and cost-efficiency
Despite heavy investment in infrastructure and digitisation, one issue remains: disconnected execution.
This whitepaper explores how automation and orchestration can radically improve how energy companies operate — not only in technology environments, but also across physical asset operations, maintenance, field services, and incident response. It introduces a framework for unifying disparate systems, workflows, and decision logic to create a single, intelligent operational fabric.
1. Why This Industry, Why Now
The energy and utilities sector is rich in complexity — and poor in orchestration.
|
Challenge |
Symptom |
|
Fragmented OT/IT stack |
Delays between system alerts and field interventions |
|
Disconnected control rooms |
Lack of end-to-end visibility and real-time response |
|
Asset-intensive field operations |
Manual handoffs between systems and departments |
|
Renewable grid pressures |
Need for adaptive, predictive, decentralised coordination |
|
Maintenance inefficiency |
Excessive downtime, resource waste, reactive work |
Despite investments in ERP, SCADA, GIS, and customer platforms, companies often lack the process intelligence and control layer to stitch everything together.
2. Automation ≠Orchestration: Clarifying the Distinction
Automation refers to making repetitive tasks or decisions machine-driven — e.g., work order generation or threshold-based alerts.
Orchestration, by contrast, is about coordinating multiple systems, people, and automations in an intelligent, adaptive, and rule-based manner.
In a generation or distribution environment, this means:
- Detecting a grid voltage issue (from SCADA)
- Validating against maintenance logs (from SAP PM)
- Checking field technician proximity (from workforce scheduler)
- Escalating to a regional control centre if thresholds exceeded
- Generating a prioritised, routed job order and notifying stakeholders
Without orchestration, automation remains siloed and limited in value.
3. Use Cases Where Orchestration Unlocks Value
- a) Automated Grid Issue Response
A voltage anomaly is detected — rather than creating a helpdesk ticket, the system evaluates severity, correlates with real-time load data, and routes actionable, geo-specific instructions to the appropriate crew.
- b) Field Service Coordination
Workflows link asset condition data with maintenance history and weather forecasts to automatically schedule, re-prioritise, and resource outages or planned work — reducing downtime and safety risks.
- c) Smart Maintenance Orchestration
Orchestrate predictive maintenance by blending IoT condition monitoring, asset criticality, technician scheduling, and logistics planning into a unified workflow.
- d) Grid Planning and Simulation
Trigger long-horizon orchestration routines that analyse upcoming load, climate impacts, maintenance plans, and market prices — producing options for human review or semi-autonomous execution.
4. The Business Impact: From Reactive to Strategic Operations
|
Metric |
Without Orchestration |
With Orchestration |
|
Mean Time to Resolution |
Hours or days |
Minutes |
|
Asset Uptime |
Suboptimal |
Predictive-driven |
|
Cost per Maintenance Event |
High, often reactive |
Lower, optimised via intelligent prioritisation |
|
Customer Outage Impact |
Uncoordinated, delayed response |
Proactive engagement and resolution |
|
ESG and Regulatory Risk |
High due to reporting lags |
Reduced via real-time performance visibility |
5. Why This Requires a Structured Framework
Orchestration is not just about tools — it is about designing the logic, interfaces, and governance that underpin automated execution.
Tidus supports clients with:
- Functional Architecture Design: Mapping the system, people, and process layers into orchestratable components
- Platform Evaluation and Integration: Assessing and enabling orchestration across systems like SAP, GE Digital, IBM Maximo, AVEVA, and custom OT/SCADA layers
- Process Engineering: Designing workflows, business rules, exception paths, and decision trees
- Execution Simulation and Optimisation: Using OR models to predict impact and refine workflows
- Governance and Risk Management: Building safeguards, overrides, and accountability into orchestrated processes
6. What Happens Without It
Organisations that fail to orchestrate:
- Struggle to extract value from new platforms
- Experience coordination breakdowns in critical operations
- Over-invest in staff to compensate for systemic gaps
- Face unnecessary downtime, regulatory exposure, and inefficiency
- Miss the opportunity to shift from firefighting to foresight
Orchestration is not an IT upgrade. It is an operational imperative.
Conclusion: The Case for Action
For energy and utilities, the next leap in performance will not come from installing more platforms — but from connecting the intelligence already in place.
Tidus offers a structured, systems-oriented, and operations-aligned approach to Automation and Orchestration, helping institutions go beyond dashboards and into actionable, adaptive operations. This is not about replacing jobs or systems — it is about enabling institutions to execute faster, smarter, and with more control than ever before.
