Technology to Culture: Evergy’s Enterprise Analytics Toolset

Andy Kapp, lead enterprise architect at Evergy, discusses how the right approach to technology can help to create an analytics culture. 

What types of benefits and ROI has your utility observed from adopting analytics?

A data driven culture, data literacy and speed to insight are among the most valuable benefits we have gained in our analytic journey. These core skills and the supporting software have given Evergy’s business leaders the edge they need to make well-informed decisions.

As an organization we have come from a narrow base of data-aware and analytic-skilled individuals to a broad base of well-versed and collaborative analytics teams. We have developed (in-house) troubleshooting tools to simulate and diagnose machine issues before they occur, provide new insights into our customers, as well as create financial forecast models, generation models, optimal market positions and so much more.

We have seen benefits ranging from dollars saved in maintenance to reduced outage durations. Analytics is revolutionizing the way we do business!

What types of technologies and tools are you using for analytics?

At an enterprise level we have wide-spread adoption of one traditional BI tool, one modern BI tool (speed to insight) and two open source statistical codes.

We have several other tools with solid adoption but on a more narrow scale. Because we promote the use of multiple tools, we often have discussions around, “what type(s) of analytics are you doing?”

We use a guide (right) to think about how each tool applies to the various types of analytics.

What does the future look like at your utility with respect to analytics?

Over time, our utility has grown into a “data producing machine”. We have more and more data sources every week. Consuming this data and making meaning of it is an enormous challenge. The organization is actively pursuing a cultural shift and becoming even more data literate and analytic aware than we are already.

In terms of technology, we are looking into virtual/logical data technology. These technologies reduce the physical replication of data and do not require ETL. We feel the analytic software that’s currently in place is sufficient for the vast majority of our future analytic needs.

Andy Kapp is a Lead Enterprise Architect at Evergy, and is a leader for Utility Analytics Institute’s Analytics Architecture & Technology Advancement Group. Learn more about UAI membership.