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Case Study

How an elec­tric­i­ty dis­trib­u­tor reduced costs by increas­ing oper­a­tional trans­paren­cy and reskilling its workforce

2023/03/31

Back­ground

The elec­tric­i­ty dis­tri­b­u­tion sec­tor is a cru­cial part of the over­all pow­er sys­tem and plays a vital role in ensur­ing the reli­able and effi­cient deliv­ery of elec­tric­i­ty to customers.

Our client is a South Amer­i­can elec­tric­i­ty dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­ny that serves 24 munic­i­pal­i­ties in its home coun­try, includ­ing its state cap­i­tal. Con­sid­ered to be the largest dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­ny in its home coun­try (in terms of ener­gy dis­trib­uted), the client oper­ates in a con­ces­sion area with a high pop­u­la­tion density.

Analy­sis

The client recog­nised that there were oppor­tu­ni­ties to reduce its oper­at­ing costs by stream­lin­ing mate­r­i­al usage and reduc­ing wastage. Since we already had a long-standing rela­tion­ship with the client, we were asked to imple­ment con­trol and trace­abil­i­ty in the mate­ri­als used by its field teams.

In the 33-week project, we worked with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the IT, Sup­plies, Pur­chas­es, Facil­i­ties, Finance, and Busi­ness Sup­port depart­ments. The project itself com­prised two phases:

PHASE 1 (14 weeks) 

We doc­u­ment­ed the organ­i­sa­tion’s as-is process­es, and designed the to-be process­es (built into a dash­board) to con­sol­i­date the move­ment of the mate­ri­als by vehicles. 

PHASE 2 (19 weeks) 

We devel­oped a blue­print to sys­tem­a­tise the project‘s con­trol solu­tions, and imple­ment­ed it with­in the ware­hous­es of three busi­ness units involved in the project. 

Project Imple­men­ta­tion

There was a strong cul­ture of active knowl­edge trans­fer hap­pen­ing through­out the project peri­od. We trained the client-side teams at all lev­els; as a result, they were able to fos­ter sus­tain­abil­i­ty and embed a cul­ture of con­tin­u­ous improvement.

This is what we achieved:

  1. Devel­oped a blue­print to sys­tem­a­tise the con­trol and trace­abil­i­ty of materials.
  2. Sup­port­ed the instal­la­tion of the blue­print and enforced the new process with logis­tics con­trac­tors with­in the ware­hous­es for one of the busi­ness units.
  3. Devel­oped a plan­ning process to ensure the effi­cient rout­ing and restock­ing of materials.
  4. Insti­tut­ed a stan­dard­i­s­a­tion of vehi­cles and ABC curves to focus on the move­ment of mate­ri­als with high­er added val­ue and vol­ume of consumption.
  5. Devel­oped oper­a­tional pro­ce­dures and work­ing instruc­tions to sup­port man­age­ment of projects.
  6. Imple­ment­ing reg­u­lar oper­a­tional reports to mon­i­tor the move­ment of mate­ri­als, with­drawals of high val­ue items, sum­ma­ry direc­tives, and replace­ment of vehicles.
  7. Mak­ing SAP PM (plant main­te­nance) orders avail­able on hand­held devices so that engi­neers can access the elec­tri­cal system’s design, work instruc­tions and his­tor­i­cal field forms.
  8. Imple­ment­ing a TRACKER tool to gauge the lev­el of adher­ence of the new man­age­ment mod­el, iden­ti­fy devi­a­tions, and take cor­rec­tive action immediately.

Results

After 33 weeks, the fol­low­ing results were achieved:

1200 

Per­son­nel trained at all levels 

US$400,000

Annu­alised savings 

3:1

ROI 

These results also turned into long-term benefits:

  1. The client now has clear­ly defined roles and respon­si­bil­i­ties — with­in the areas of scope — for all oper­a­tional func­tions and sup­port services.
  2. All per­son­nel now have bet­ter vis­i­bil­i­ty of mate­ri­als con­sumed and wast­ed, along with trace­abil­i­ty of their movements.

Our industry-proven capa­bil­i­ties and exper­tise enable the client to ben­e­fit from not only short- and medium-term sav­ings, but also a firm foun­da­tion for imple­ment­ing future improve­ments with­out the need for exter­nal support.

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