Experience

Experience Summary

The combined experience of Energy Consulting International, Inc. (ECI), SCS Computer Consulting (SCSCC) and Dr. Savu C. Savulescu encompasses a broad range of activities in computer engineering and utility operations, planning and control. We've been active in utility information systems including SCADA/EMS/DMS,Market Systems, Substation Automation Systems and information technologies on which the Smart Grids of today are predicated.

IT projects are best handled by project teams that are dedicated exclusively to the project or one of its components, and are composed of professionals who know both what they are doing and what they are supposed to do.

Introduced by IBM under the name Chief Programmer Team, this approach consists of allowing "... each segment of a large job be tackled by a team, but that team be organized like a surgical team rather than a hog-butchering team. That is, instead of each member cutting away at the problem, one does the cutting and the others give him the support that will enhance his effectiveness and productivity ... few minds are involved in design and construction ... The chief programmer ... personally defines the functional and performance specifications, designs the program (system), ..." [3].

Learning from this wise advice, we limited the size and scope of our involvement in consulting and/or software projects to the specific area of expertise of Savu C. Savulescu either as a prime contractor, on behalf of himself or representing ECI or SCSCC, when the project scope was totally under our umbrella of experience, or as a subcontractor to a larger company when the project was too big to be handled exclusively by us.

On the other hand, the old adage small is beautiful applies perfectly to IT projects. Quoting again from [3]: "... the Babel project was the first engineering fiasco ... Did they have: A clear mission? Yes ... Manpower? Plenty of it ... Enough time? Yes ... Well, if they had all of these things, why did the project fail? In two respects: communication, and its consequence, organization ..."

Perhaps another explanation of our success in the utility information systems business, in addition to limiting our area of endeavor to what we know and can do without external help, is the very fact that by limiting the project team to one person each and every time when this is feasible, we eliminate overhead, technical and conceptual misunderstandings, and unnecessary back-and-forth information handling.

[3] Brooks, F. P. "The Mythical Man Month. Essays on Software Engineering", Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, MA, 1982

Our business model reflects lessons we learned during many years of professional practice. Accordingly, we accept only assignments that are fully consistent with our area of expertise and can be completed with our own resources. By implication, this also means that we stay small. Being small, as we see it, is not a sin. Rather, it provides significant benefits such as efficiency, speed and fluency in getting the job done, and low cost to our clients.

The Lioness

A CONTROVERSY prevailed among the beasts of the field as to which of the animals deserved the most credit for producing the greatest number of whelps at a birth. They rushed clamorously into the presence of the Lioness and demanded of her the settlement of the dispute. 'And you,' they said, 'how many sons have you at a birth?' The Lioness laughed at them, and said: 'Why! I have only one; but that one is altogether a thoroughbred Lion.'

The value is in the worth, not in the number.

The success of the consulting work we've conducted so far stems from the hands-on experience we acquired through many years in software engineering, system integration and advanced application development for energy control centers. For example, we developed software for the real-time monitoring and prediction of the risk of blackout due to instability. Known as QuickStab [1], this application has been successfully deployed, since 1994, off-line and in real-time in US, Europe, Latin America and Asia. In 2010, QuickStab was acquired by Siemens AG (Siemens), which solely owns and exclusively distributes it world-wide. Siemens has seamlessly integrated QuickStab with the Spectrum Power SCADA/EMS platform and the SiGuard[2] blackout prevention suite, and it also offers it as a stand-alone package that can be used off-line and/or integrated in real-time by third-party developers and system providers.

The key expert at ECI and SCSCC is Dr. Savu C. Savulescu (Savu). He graduated in electrical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest, Romania,and obtained the degree of Doctor of Sciences Degrees (Ph.D.) from the Polytechnic School of Mons, Belgium. He holds a Professional Engineer degree from the University of the State of New York, USA, and a postdoctoral degree (Livre Docência) from the University of São Paulo, Brazil. In addition to his work in utility information systems and software development, Savu was a Full Voting Member of the ANSI X3J11 Committee that wrote the ANSI C Language standard. He has a strong background in computer architectures and operations research, and acquired extensive international consulting experience from past and current projects conducted, in capacity of project manager and/or lead technical consultant, in the United States, Algeria, Bosnia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Romania, Tunisia, Uruguay, Venezuela and Vietnam.

Prior to his current activities, Savu was International Marketing Manager with Electrotek Concepts, Inc. (1998-2002), Principal Consultant with Kema Consulting, Inc. (1995-1997), Senior Manager at Stagg Systems, Inc. (1978-1988), Professor and Chair of Computer Science at Pratt Institute, New York (1989-1992), Professor and Chair of Electrical Engineering at the University of São Paulo in São Carlos, Brazil (1973-1978), and Assistant Professor at the Polytechnic School of Mons, Belgium (1970-1973). He authored numerous technical papers; edited the books Real-Time Stability in Power Systems, Second Edition, published by Springer Energy in 2014, Real-Time Stability Assessment in Modern Power System Control Centers, published by John Wiley and Sons and IEEE Press in 2009, Real-Time Stability in Power Systems (Springer Verlag, 2005) and Computerized Operation in Power Systems, printed by Elsevier Scientific Publishing in 1975; and authored the book Graphs, Digraphs and Electrical Networks, which appeared in Brazil in 1981 and was translated in Romanian language by Editura Tehnica from Bucharest, Romania in 1994.

[1] Prior to June 12, 2010 when it was acquired by Siemens, QuickStab was a registered trade mark of ECI, Inc.

[2] SiGuard is a registered trademark of Siemens PTI