Minnesota Power, a division of ALLETE, provides electricity in a 26,000-square-mile electric service territory located in northeastern Minnesota. Minnesota Power supplies retail electric service to 133,000 customers and wholesale electric service to 16 municipalities.
Minnesota Power owns and operates 180 substations and 15 hydro and thermal generating stations. Minnesota Power's transmission network is interconnected with the regional transmission grid to promote reliability and is part of a larger multi-state transmission organization called the Midwest Independent System Operator.
The Challenges:
- The CAD group is centralized in Duluth, MN yet must support multiple sites. People who need access to the engineering drawings are remote from the CAD group.
- Engineering staff travels to multiple sites and needs access to drawings at each site.
- CAD group must support all the different engineering disciplines within the company including electrical, mechanical, structural, and civil.
The ImageSite Solution:
- Remote users can access the drawings stored in ImageSite on a 24/7 basis, using only a standard Web browser. More than 80,000 engineering drawings are stored in ImageSite, providing immediate access to any authorized user – no matter where they are located.
- Maintaining a centralized repository for all engineering drawings eliminates the need for redundant copies at each remote location. It also helps eliminate errors such as wrong versions. Users get immediate access to the latest information whenever they need it.
- Unique attributes are assigned to each drawing so that it's easy to search for the desired document.
ImageSite Benefits:
- Remote users get easy and immediate access to desired drawings. Minnesota Power's CAD repository is well organized and up to date.
- Encapsulation lets users download or e-mail drawings with a self-contained viewer to allow offline document viewing, measurement, and markup.
- ImageSite's integrated network plotting is popular and lets users easily print the drawings they need at their local site.
- No client software to install or maintain.
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