Franco Miceli referred to as me Friday afternoon. I used to be in a gathering so didn’t choose up. He referred to as once more, so I knew it was necessary.
An unimaginable man, Franco is our metering director. He works 24/7 so far as I can inform. When a buyer has a failed set up or for a lot of different causes, Franco will personally name them – give them his cellular quantity and do no matter essential to make amends and kind it. For months, Franco and the incredible, devoted, hard-pressed Octopus metering workforce (Tom, Nia, John, David, Marc, Barry and extra) have been killing themselves attempting to get SMETS2 (second technology good meter) installs working reliably.
Right here’s the story Franco associated to me – which illustrates the challenges of quickly rolling out model new know-how, and could also be key to dramatically growing our set up numbers, reliability and buyer expertise:
We’d had a troublesome few weeks, with some SMETS2 installs going okay, and others – utilizing precisely the identical tools and procedures – inexplicably failing. A failure isn’t a easy affair – the engineer can spend all day in a buyer’s residence attempting to get the meter working, swapping completely different bits of equipment out and in, rebooting each bit of apparatus (fuel meter, electrical energy meter, comms hub, IHD, their very own handheld pc, and so forth) in several sequences. It’s like when you may have a bluetooth, wifi, or cellular connection you’re attempting to repair… solely with dramatically much less assist in the best way of error messages/google searches for different individuals’s fixes, and with an more and more pissed off buyer eager to understand how lengthy you’ll be. And one other half-dozen prospects ready to listen to if you happen to’ll get to their residence as we speak.
we’re presently working with prospects who’re blissful to be triallists – we’ll solely scale up when installs are reliably easy
In desperation to crack the issue we’ve accomplished offers with completely different installers, meter producers, and so forth., and whereas this has given extra choices for fulfillment it additionally opens up massively new combos of error.
We’ve additionally spoken to a couple of dozen rival vitality suppliers to swap learnings and examine notes.
We hosted an enormous assembly of the whole provide chain – producer, comms supplier, software program connector builders, DCC and extra, together with our technical individuals – sitting everybody in the identical room whereas an engineer put in a meter – and had every celebration watching their very own programs to hint the standing. Like NASA mission management with every celebration capable of declare success or failure at every stage of the set up. Everybody was extremely affected person and useful, nevertheless it didn’t crack the difficulty.
The workforce monitoring a meter set up
So we’ve had every day guided installs, all day if crucial, with each celebration on the cellphone whereas we monitor a single set up. We’ve found many necessary quirks. For instance, it seems that the order by which every system within the house is booted, and the way lengthy between every stage, is essential. Get it improper, and the entire thing must be accomplished once more – or worse, the tools can find yourself “bricked” – actually unusable and needing to get replaced.
Lastly, after many individuals working the equal of tons of of days painstakingly monitoring and downside fixing, the workforce recognized an astonishingly onerous to search out challenge:
The highest layer of meters within the pallet didn’t work.
Now, a pallet incorporates tons of of meters – and once they arrive within the warehouse they’re loaded in small batches into vans. By this level it’s by no means apparent from which place on the pallet the meters originated, so by the point we’ve obtained everybody monitoring the set up no-one would even take into consideration the place within the pallet as a variable.
However the caring, observant, decided engineers at Octopus Vitality Providers (our new meter set up enterprise), and the remainder of our workforce, raised this as a hunch, having observed that once they had been selecting up new meters from decrease down the pallet they appeared extra more likely to work.
And right here’s why:
The producers take a look at the highest layer of meters earlier than they go away the manufacturing facility. Typical good observe to verify a batch works.
However beneath the SMETS2 safety protocol, evidently a meter which has been examined will now not work – presumably by no means once more.
That is simply one of many many particulars of the protocol which emerge as we undertake the rollout. On this case, it’s the equal of a digital tamper seal. It might or might not be an optimum safety answer – there are different anti-tamper digital safety options the place testing could be potential – however as with a lot new know-how, such options solely change into seen when the merchandise go away the lab and enter the true world.
The highest layer of a pallet is over 100 meters – so this can be a fairly huge challenge.
Now we all know this, we will remove one variable in our quest to drive dependable installations.
We’re informed that this will assist resolve a minimum of one industry-wide challenge – certainly, inside hours of us sharing this, a number of different vitality suppliers, together with among the Massive 6, realised they appear to be affected by the identical downside.
And I needed to share it as a result of:
(a) I see tweets and obtain emails from pissed off prospects who wish to know why we aren’t capable of give a timeline for full-scale dependable installs, and I wish to give an perception into the “unknown” points – and the way onerous the workforce are working to resolve them
(b) The work the workforce do to unearth points like that is unimaginable, and desires recognition
(c) I hesitate to be optimistic (I’ve been improper too typically for that!) however this can be a major step to with the ability to up the dimensions of our rollout
(d) I wish to tackle a few penalties:
The primary consequence is that whereas we’ve got points like this we won’t press the accelerator on our good meter rollout, as our buyer custodianship signifies that we strive to not do issues which is able to result in failed installations, re-visits, cancellations and so forth.
The second consequence is the distraction of the workforce – whereas they’re centered on basic points like this, they are not capable of dedicate as a lot effort and time as we might prefer to imposing applicable oversight of contractors to make sure they all the time flip up once they say they’ll, and protecting prospects knowledgeable in addition to they need to. As quickly as we’ve got points like this out of the best way we’ll be capable of change into as centered on glorious experiences for purchasers in metering as we’re in every thing else.
The good meter programme is essential in delivering a sensible grid, enabling us to maneuver to an reasonably priced, equitable inexperienced future. We love good meters. We create extra services that depend on them than some other vitality firm and espouse a future which is constructed round them. That’s why we weblog concerning the challenges in addition to doing monumental quantities of labor to advertise the alternatives they afford.
The good meter rollout has been profitable – in just some years, many tens of millions of houses have acquired good meters. The transition from 1st Technology (SMETS1) to 2nd Technology (SMETS2) does trigger some uncertainty, however we’re working evening and day to minimise disruption for our prospects.
I hope insights like this assist improve confidence that individuals are working onerous to verify your meter might be dependable to put in and function – moderately than the commentary from among the naysayers. I would additionally prefer to acknowledge help from key individuals at DCC, Telefonica, TMA, CGI, BEIS and a bunch of others together with Magnum, British Fuel, Co-Op and Robin Hood (no offence if I’ve forgotten anybody else).
Lastly, it is value noting that this all applies to the Southern SMETS2 community (basically south of the Midlands). The Northern space – together with Scotland – is on a distinct community which is experiencing different points and so any acceleration will not but apply there.
