Asset Management: Data and Decisions

Dr. A. J. McGrail, Member, IEEE, FIET

population of transformers and the operational and

Abstract--The ongoing development of an International maintenance regimes which they underwent.
Standards Organization (ISO) Standard for Asset Management Age at Failure for >7000 2-winding transformers
provides a timely opportunity to focus on the elements of asset
500 100.0%
management in practice at both distribution and transmission 450 90.0%
substations: what are the risks associated with poor condition 400 80.0%

and what investment protocols yield the maximum return for 350
300
70.0%
60.0%
regulators, the owners and the customer. The collection and

Count
250 50.0%

analysis of condition data, synthesized with operational data, has 200 40.0%
150 30.0%
been used to identify anomalous performance and allow for short 100 20.0%
term reactive planning and longer term strategic planning for 50 10.0%

asset replacement. This paper looks at the heuristics of data 0

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
0.0%

analytics as they have developed, and the need, within the Age at Failure

framework of the Smart Grid, to ensure that key substation

nodes are asset managed consistently and transparently. Fig. 2. Age at Failure for a Sample of 7000 Power Transformers

Asset performance must be reviewed not just in terms of

Index Terms—algorithm, asset management, bushing,
dissolved gas analysis, heuristic, power transformer, oil
I. INTRODUCTION
sset management covers the full range of asset related
A activities from identifying the original need or
requirement for an asset through to disposal [1-4]. The
‘survival’ but in ability of the system to provide customers
with safe and reliable service. In the electric supply industry,
reliability is a key performance indicator; almost every utility
has one or more targets which relate to reliability figures, set
by local regulatory bodies [8, 9]. These targets may come with
financial penalties. Some common examples include:

• SAIDI – System Average Interruption Duration Index is the

asset life cycle may be dominated by use and maintenance [5],
especially for the more capital intensive items such as power
transformers. In managing assets we must look at the
population – some sub-groups may be more likely to fail than
others, for example – and the consequence of a particular asset
being unavailable. Figure 1 shows the age distribution of a
population of power transformers [6].
average outage duration for each customer served
(measured in minutes)
• SAIFI – System Average Interruption Frequency Index is
the average number of interruptions a customer would
experience (measured in interruptions)
• CAIDI - Customer Average Interruption Duration Index is
the average outage duration any customer would experience
(a measure of restoration time in minutes)

The role of asset management is to understand both the

technical requirements of the asset and the financial ‘whole of
life’ requirements of the asset, translating between the two sets
of requirements where necessary [10]. The development of
PAS55 (Publicly Available Specification 55) has been
instrumental in raising the profile of asset management around
the world. The role of ISO will be key in making asset
management more widely acceptable.

Fig. 1. Power Transformer Age Distribution Profile
There are many older units, but the age distribution does not
demonstrate those which are most likely to fail, or those which
have the highest impact if they do fail. Figure 2 shows actual
failure counts for a set of 7000 reported failures, recorded by
Doble Engineering [7]; what is missing, clearly, is the total
Dr. McGrail is with the Doble Engineering Company, Watertown, MA,
02472, USA (e-mail: tmcgrail@doble.com).
II. ISO ASSET MANAGEMENT AND IEEE
To assist with the gamut of targets and responsibilities
facing an organization asset management has been used in a
somewhat ad hoc manner. With a provenance in the UK in the
early 2000’s PAS55 has been used around the world to help
identify symptoms of asset management in an auditable
manner, across a range of industries with significant
investments in physical assets [11]. PAS55 is a significant
input to the development of an International Standards
Organization (ISO) standard on asset management, which is

978-1-4577-0875-6/11/$26.00@2011 IEEE
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 currently in progress [12].
One of the benefits of an ISO Asset Management standard
will be the international consensus and coverage which such a
standard brings. Organizations reference quality standard ISO
9001 frequently and it is very much the case that PAS55 has
not had the same traction. However, it has undeniably been a
catalyst for development. The ISO will have the standard
sections on definitions, but will also develop features of a
good asset management program and recommendations for
implementation of good asset management systems.
The IEEE has a Working Group on Asset Management
which is currently defining its terms of reference and scope;
the meeting in Detroit, USA, July 2011, was well attended and
produced much discussion on the role of the IEEE in asset
management. The consensus was for the IEEE to act as an
input to standards development elsewhere rather than to
develop a new or different standard [13].
III. DATA AND DECISIONS
A. Data and Analysis
In common to all asset management are:
• a focus on risk as a combination of likelihood of being
‘unavailable’ and the consequence of that unavailability
• intervention planning and cost justification
• measuring and acting on effectiveness of actions
The consequence of failure to plan intervention effectively
could be significant. Figure 3 shows the remains of a breaker
which failed in service. The consequent interruption to
customers was significant.
Fig. 3. Circuit Breaker Failure
What decisions were made with respect to this breaker?
Was the condition data available to support on-going
confidence in the ability to perform its function? The resulting
investigation is not public material.
Asset owners collect asset data to understand the nature of
the asset groups we have – by manufacturer, by design, by
location, by impact or criticality. Condition data is collected as
part of an iterative process to identify actions – maintain,
replace. Condition and operational data may require both short
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term intervention and longer term investment. The stages of
the overall iterative process may be summarized as:
• Collect data – condition, operation, family/design,
industry etc
• Analyze data – looking for anomaly and outliers
• Identify anomaly – based on individual asset data,
which may combine condition and operation data or
aggregate data across several assets or asset types
• Diagnose anomalous data – find possible causes
• Identify a prognosis for anomalous data – what is
likely to happen and with what consequences in what
timescales
• Plan for intervention – replace a failed unit;
repair/refurbish a unit that is failing ‘gracefully’; plan
longer term investment; one action plan may be to not
physically intervene but plan for failure
• Monitor the situation – some decisions may be ‘fuzzy’
or ill defined, continue analysis and review timeliness
and appropriateness of intervention
• Iterate – further data collection and checking and review
of ‘anomaly detection’.
There are many ways to visualize the process, including
waterfall and control loops.
Data may be used in several ways:
• By itself and with reference to its own history, as with the
operating time on a breaker, looking for variation against
‘expected’ values
• In synthesis/combination with other available data –
transformer load and top oil temperature, noting that a
correlation may be time delayed
• In aggregation with other individual units – does one unit
stand out? Does one unit have an operating time within
specification but which is slower than others in the same
family? Is the relationship between two parameters not
one of cause and effect, but one of two effects deriving
from a common cause?
B. Example: Transformer Temperature and Load Current
In figure 4 taken from a Doble Conference paper in 2004,
transformer top oil, ambient and other temperatures are plotted
against time [14]; in addition the winding current is also
plotted, the thicker black line. The data shows:
- strong correlation for top oil temperature and load current
- delay between cycles of load current and temperature
- some correlation between top oil temperature and
ambient temperature
This data can be used to predict how temperatures may
vary in future for this unit, and variation from expected values
used to identify an anomalous situation.
Fig. 4. Transformer Top Oil Temperature and Load Current
 The data for the transformer current andd the temperature
may be collected and analyzed at the transfoormer. In general,
there are benefits to analyzing data at the point where it is
collected – timeliness of analysis being onne. Where data is
combined from multiple sources, analysis at the point of
combination gives the shortest time lag to identification of
anomaly; where data is aggregated across several units,
anomaly at the individual unit level m may appear with
identification of an outlier at the ‘higher’’ level. Where a
decision is made as to an ‘intervention’ is a ddifferent question.
Protection/control settings are local and auutonomous. Some
condition monitoring acts on the same priincipal. However,
where a condition has some incipiency there may be a
decision made only after human analysis.
C. Datamining
Datamining is the process of extractingg synthesized and
previously recorded knowledge from large ddatabases [15-19].
The term `datamining' has come to mean manny things to many Fig. 5. Self-Organizing Visualization of Transformer
T DGA Results
people and covers a wide range of techniquues [20, 21]; it is
sometimes seen as a small step in a broadeer overall process
The first level of analysis is to make
m sure we are not ‘too
called knowledge discovery in databasess. Datamining is
far’ from the original data – but whaat statistics may be used to
concerned with developing algorithms thaat are applied in
characterize that data adequately? As Anscombe noted, and
software to a real problem. So, what woould be a ‘good
demonstrated, significantly differentt data sets may have very
problem’? Using dissolved gas (DGA) analysis of transformer
common derived statistics [23]: the four
f sets of data in figure x
oil is an interesting field which has led to mucch datamining.
have the same mean and standard deviation to two decimal
Most power large power transformers aree monitored using
places in both x and y values; thee four sets have the same
DGA of the insulating oil. There are sseveral standards
regression factor and trend line to two decimal places. Yet
available for the interpretation of the levels oof dissolved gases,
they look remarkably different – as shown
s in Figure 6.
both individually and in combination ()). A datamining
application sponsored by National Grid inn the UK was a
contribution to a CIGRE Session 2002 papeer on Datamining
[20, 22]. In this work, a self-organizing neuural network was
used to allow several thousand DGA results tto form their own
groupings in several dimensions. These groupings were
mapped to a two dimensional plot. The grooupings appear as
different regions of the plot, as shown in figuure 5.
An example of an individual transformerr ‘trajectory’ over
time, its progress into different regions as it deteriorates, is
given – starting at the green point and moving through
successive regions to lie in the red region. This kind of data
analysis is a useful visualization techniquee to assist in the
interpretation of data.
Care must be taken in the use of such aapproaches – it is
necessary to check that the data in the ‘trajectory’ is not too
different to that used to develop the original mmapping. Fig. 6. Anscombe’s Quartet: 4 data sets with
w very similar statistics

D. Heuristics
‘Heuristics’ refers to experien nce-based techniques for
problem solving, learning, and disco overy such as using a "rule
of thumb", an educated guess, an a intuitive judgment, or
common sense [24]. Heuristic app proaches have developed
over time and provide adequate soluttions to real problem.
It is well understood, for example, that the origin of power
factor testing is based on analysis and electrical engineering
theory and the present terminology, CH, CHL etc relate to the
techniques developed decades ago [25]. [ The interpretation of
the test result, however, is still a maatter for consideration and
debate: what may be a good result one day, in a given context,
may be bad the next, in a very simillar context. The test has an

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 analytic theory but is often heuristic in interprretation.
The problem with many dataminingg approaches as
described for DGA above, and heuristic appproaches, is that
they are based on historic data and available ‘common sense’.
When the prevailing wisdom no longer appliies, when the data
is no longer an interpolation between known wn and understood
data points but an extrapolation, then tthere may be a
breakdown in standard interpretation algorithhms.
E. Example: Bushing On-Line Monitoring D Data
As an example we can use bushing test tap data which is
used to derive continuous power factor and capacitance
values. A traditional approach has been tto sum the three
vectors into a single value, known as the ssum current. The
problem is that the sum current approach maay hide a problem
– the processing has removed information evven as it displays
the aggregated data in a palatable form. italiciized.
An example where a bushing shows degraadation is given in
figure 7, with data extracted from an on-lline measurement
system called an IDD [26].
Fig. 7. On-Line Bushing Monitoring Data
On line bushing monitoring systems recorrd the phase angle
and magnitude of leakage current through thhe bushing tap to
determine the power factor displayed in figurre 7.
There are similar cases of degradationn being indicated
through phase angle variation. Figure 8 show ws what could be
interpreted as indicating a degraded bushing for two bushings
as they develop over a period of days.
Fig. 8. On-line Monitoring Data for Two Bushings
In fact, the data in Figure 8 may also bee interpreted as a
variation in the power system which providdes the voltage at
the bushing and the current through it. His was, in fact, the
case. The bushings were in good conditioon but the power
system was showing significant variations. The lesson is to
make sure that interpretation of data is doone in the largest
context available – using all available data.
Heuristic algorithms are often employed bbecause they may
be seen to "work" without having been matheematically proven
to meet a given set of requirements. One ccommon pitfall in
implementing a heuristic method to meet a reequirement comes
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when the engineer or designer fails to realize that the current
data set does not necessarily represeent future system states, or
is interpreted in a particular way wheen other interpretations are
available, as with the bushings.
An example of how statistics may y be misleading is from the
world of medical diagnostics [27]: if I test positive for a
particular genetic predisposition, andd the test is 90% accurate,
what are the chances I have the preedisposition? The question
is not answerable without a knowleedge of the prevalence of
the predisposition in the general population. If that is
prevalence is only 10%, then my ind dividual test being positive
means that there is only a 50/50 thatt I have the condition.
This statistic has been used to decry
y the efficacy of such tests.
However, if the test was negative, th he likelihood that I am, in
fact, negative, is well over 90%. The role of statistics in
misleading juries at trials, in ways exactly analogous to the
situation presented here, has been doocumented [27].
Consequently we must be verry aware of the origins,
derivations and limits of the use ofo heuristic methods, even
when coupled with statistical boundaries which may,
themselves, be misleading.
F. Smart Grid
What do all the data, decisions an nd analysis have to do with
the smart grid? Many of the ‘smartts’ which are put into the
condition evaluation of substation equipment are automated
algorithms which often require ‘ch hecking by adults’ [28] –
people experienced in the origins of data and its interpretation.
With an ageing workforce, such people p are becoming less
common [29].
As an example, the ‘flash crash h of 2:45’, a stock market
crash in 2010 was one which wass, in theory, the result of
analysis algorithms responding to the market in unforeseen
ways [30]. 9% of the market value disappeared in seconds. A
subsequent theory that the wholle event was based on
erroneous data entry is salutary. Alg gorithms unobserved were
the source of an event related to Am mazon: the website price for
a book “The Making of a Fly”, which was out of print,
available from two suppliers. At one point the book, which
retailed at $35, was on sale for in excess
e of $1.7 million. No
one bought the book, but the price continued to rise to over
$23.6 million. The cause was a set of o algorithms two vendors
used, which were based on the other o vendor’s price. The
control loops weren’t able to recog gnize ‘common sense’ and
escalated in a closed loop. A single human
h intervention was all
it took to correct the situation [28].
We must ensure that as we develo op the rules and criteria of
smart grid that we keep the human element
e central. The smart
grid must thus react more quickly to external events, and in
such a way that it is predictable and d the algorithms employed
well understood. The day everythin ng goes dark, a flash crash
of the voltage due to a huge number of devices simultaneously
switching in to take advantage of lo ow electric prices, may not
be far away.
IV. CONCLUSIIONS
Asset management is a disciplinee which is becoming more
holistic and far reaching in terms of
o asset lives. Data being
used to make decisions is not necessarily representative of all
 data that may be seen. Algorithms used to analyze data and [29] E. Leibold and E. Voelpel, “Managing the Ageing Workforce”,
Davenport, ISBN: 3895782637
make decisions must be monitored themselves so as to ensure
[30] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Flash_Crash
that the outcomes are not unexpected. As the work force ages,
encapsulation of tacit knowledge becomes more pressing and
more critical – to ensure that the smart grid remains smart.. VII. BIOGRAPHY

V. ACKNOWLEDGMENT Tony McGrail (M’1991, FIET) is presently the Doble

Engineering Solutions Manager for On-Line
The author wishes to express sincere thanks and gratitude diagnostics, providing condition, criticality and risk
to many colleagues at Doble Engineering, at National Grid analysis for utility companies. Previously Tony has
and at many organizations within the electric supply industry spent over 10 years with National Grid in the UK and
for their thoughts, comments, feedback and engaging the US; he has been both a substation equipment
specialist, with a focus on power transformers, circuit
discussions. breakers and integrated condition monitoring, and has
also taken on the role of substation asset manager and
VI. REFERENCES distribution asset manager, identifying risks and opportunities for investment
in an ageing infrastructure. Tony is a Fellow of the IET, a member of the
[1] P. Bernstein,. “Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk”, John IEEE and the IAM, is currently chair of the Doble Client Committee on Asset
Wiley & Sons, 1996, ISBN 0471295639 and Maintenance Management and a contributor to SFRA and other standards
[2] A. Wilson, “Asset Management: A European Perspective”, 75th Annual at IEEE, IEC and CIGRE. His initial degree was in Physics, supplemented by
International Conference of Doble Clients, Boston, USA, 2006. an MS and a PhD in EE and an MBA. Tony is an Adjunct Professor at
[3] http://www.uspc251tag.org/ Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MA, leading courses in power systems
[4] Asset Management Council of Australia, www.amcouncil.com.au analysis.
[5] S. Wearne, “Control of Engineering Projects”, 1989, ISBN 0727713876
[6] J. Afonso, V. Forte., J. Grimsley, T., McGrail, “Asset Management:
From Assets to KPI’s”, 4th EPRI International Conference on Asset
Management, Chicago, USA, 2008
[7] As presented at the GE Prolec & Weidmann Transformer Seminar, May
2011 by Dr. Tony McGrail of Doble Engineering
[8] H. Eto, K. LaCommar, “Tracking the Reliability of the U.S. Electric
Power System: An Assessment of Publicly Available Information
Reported to State Public Utility Commissions”, Berkley National Lab,
2008, Report: LBNL-1092E
[9] J. Rothwell, “The Reliability Triangle”, T&D World, Nov 2004
[10] J. Hardwick, “Aspects of Asset Management at Energy Australia”
Energy Australia, 76th Annual International Conference of Doble
Clients, Boston, USA, 2007
[11] Publicly Available Specification 55, BSI, 2004, ISBN 0-580-42766-8
[12] T. McGrail, “ISO Development of an Asset Management Standard”,
National Association of Property Managers, Atlantic Chapter, May 2011
[13] R. Davies, J. Dieter & T. McGrail, “The IEEE and Asset management:
A Discussion Paper”, IEEE PES Conference, Detroit, July 2011
[14] J. Glodio “Field experience with multipoint internal temperature
measurements of converter transformers”, International Conference of
Doble Clients, Boston, 2004
[15] U. M. Fayyad, "Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery: Making Sense
Out of Data", IEEE Expert, Intelligent Systems and their Applications,
October 1996
[16] L. Wehenkel,"Automatic Learning Techniques in Power Systems",
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[17] A. A Freitas and S. H. Lavington, "Mining Very Large Databases with
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in Power Tutorial, July 1999
[20] T. McGrail, “Datamining”, 69th International Conference of Doble
Clients, Boston, 2000
[21] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_mining
[22] A. McGrail, E. Gulski, E. Groot, D. Allan, D. Birtwhistle, T. Blackburn,
“Data mining techniques to assess the condition Of high voltage
electrical plant” on behalf of CIGRE WG 15.11 of Study Committee 15,
CIGRE Session 2002
[23] F.J. Anscombe, "Graphs in Statistical Analysis," American Statistician,
27 (February 1973), 17-21
[24] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic
[25] http://www.tufts.edu/home/feature/?p=doble
[26] R. Wancour, S. Molter, R. Brusetti, E. Weatherbee, “Chronicling The
Degradation Of A 345 Kv General Electric Type U Bushing”, 78th
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ol_juries.html
[28] http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/kevin_slavin_how_algorithms_shape
_our_world.html

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