A day ahead of the southerly storm
Emma leads the line crews at a large power network company in Wellington, one of the windiest cities on earth.
Listen to the story:
The challenge
When a southerly storm hits, trees fall on lines and suburbs go dark. She hears the warning on the radio and calls crews in at midnight. By the time the trucks reach the hills of Karori, four thousand homes have been dark for hours.
How the flow works
With xMap Flows, Emma built Sentinel. Sentinel is an AI employee: a flow of 6 blocks.
Every day at five,
Every day at 5 am (Schedule)
Sentinel reads every line and substation from the company’s asset list,
Lines and substations (My data)
checks the wind forecast at each one for the next two days,
Next two days, each site (Weather forecast)
keeps the ones where the wind passes ninety kilometres an hour,
Wind over 90 km/h (Filter)
puts the worst first,
Strongest wind first (Sort and limit)
and warns the crew leads a day ahead.
Warn the crew leads (Telegram Bot)
What it solves
- Storms found too late: solved by Schedule and Weather forecast and Filter
- Midnight overtime calls: solved by Sort and limit and Telegram Bot
- Hours without power: solved by My data and Telegram Bot
The result
On Tuesday, Sentinel flags eleven feeders in Karori and above Petone, with wind of a hundred and ten by Wednesday night. Emma books her crews in daylight and parks a truck in each valley. When the storm hits, power is back within the hour.
Emma no longer chases the storm. She waits for it, ready.
An illustrative scenario: the figures are modelled to show what the flow produces, not a customer's results.
The flow, block by block
- 1
- 2
Lines and substations
Brings in a table you uploaded or a list you saved on the My data page: your stores, customers, target accounts or sites.
- 3
Next two days, each site
The weather forecast (Open-Meteo, from national weather services) for up to 16 days: temperature, rain, wind and UV.
- 4
- 5
Strongest wind first
Puts the items in order, and can keep only the first ones: the 10 best rated, the 20 nearest, the highest fit scores.
- 6
Templates to build it
Ready-made flows with the same blocks. Open one, change the city and the kind of place, and run it.
- High UV days: advice for my clinics' patientsOn high UV days, a short sun safety tip for each clinic's patients.
- Heat stop for outdoor work, every hourA WhatsApp heat stop to supervisors when a site reaches 45 degrees.
- Wind alert for crane liftsA Slack alert to stop crane lifts when strong wind is forecast.
- Frost warning for my farmsA WhatsApp frost warning to farm managers when nights get cold.
- Heavy rain at our facilities: spill prevention checklistA spill prevention checklist for each site when heavy rain is coming.
- Heat at my plants: shift and break planTomorrow’s heat at each plant, with a shift and break plan.
Industries
Learn how it works
- Data enrichmentAdding details to records you already have.
- How to score candidate store sitesCompare sites on residents, competitors and neighbours, with an AI score and a reason.
- How to build a WhatsApp assistant that answers about placesCustomers ask on WhatsApp; an AI agent searches and replies.
- Weather forecastUp to 16 days for each place or city.
- Your own tables and lists (My data)Upload a CSV, save lists of results, and use them in flows.
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Build this flow on your own city
Run a live search on the home page without an account, or let Ask xMap build the flow from one sentence.