UTILITIES TROUBLE RESPONSE MANAGEMENT CONSULTING
Utilities Management Consulting - Trouble Response
Corporate Objectives
- Evolving the business to be relevant and flourishing in the future.
- Enabling emerging technologies and addressing customer expectations.
- Delivering sustainable business improvements within their Power Delivery teams.
- Realizing benefits through their Power Delivery Transformation Program.
Objectives
PVA partnered with this Client in Planning & Scheduling and Field Services to implement enhanced processes, management operating systems, and management behaviours. These were designed to achieve specific objectives.
- Continue to improve our Client’s excellent safety culture.
- Become more efficient in how work is planned, scheduled & executed.
- Train and coach Supervisors (Coordinators) & Managers to better support their teams.
- Make the current processes & system tools work more efficiently at all levels.
- Improve the flow of work on projects, including both internal and external work teams.
- Improve financial & operational performance.
Assessment Findings
Priority focus areas were identified through an initial PVA Assessment in the Planning & Scheduling and Field Services areas.
- The workforce was not being actively managed in the areas observed, and there was almost no follow-up of the work at hand during the day.
- The management team did not have standardized role clarity, particularly related to active management and barrier identification and resolution.
- Work standards and productivity measurements had not been fully developed or communicated in the areas observed.
- Barriers to work execution were not being consistently tracked, and there was little root cause analysis for repetitive problems.
- There was no comprehensive Employee Involvement or Continuous Improvement Program in place to effectively engage the workforce.
- The management team did not have a structured management operating system in place to align costs and hold people accountable for improved performances.
- There was interrupted flow in the end-to-end workflow process, particularly as work moved across different organizational teams, such as from planning & scheduling teams to execution teams.
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Work Time
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Travel Time
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Opportunity Time
PVA's Response
- Improve the flow of work from planning & scheduling to execution teams (for both internal and external work teams).
- Clarify roles for Planners, Schedulers, Project Inspectors and Supervisors (Coordinators).
- Correct estimates, clean up backlogs & create “Job Jar” (back-up assignments) work for crews.
- Implement more effective resource management & overtime control processes.
- Reduce administrative burden for Supervisors (Coordinators).
- Improve compliance to business rules, such as daily time reporting and approval.
- Improve compliance to timely updating of information within the Maximo system.
- Implement method changes for shift-start and end-of-shift activities.
- Implement guidelines for how to charge time to Admin Work Orders, Asset Maintenance Work, Projects (billable, capital, expense projects).
- Improve the team’s ability to create follow-up work orders when required.
- Implement the scheduling of Trouble Response crews with interruptible work.
- Increase collaboration through the creation of multi-functional teams that include trades, non-trades, and quality inspector resources.
- Implement a comprehensive Barrier Resolution Program to continually identify, prioritize, assign and follow-up on the removal of barriers impacting the crews.
- Implement a weekly review of key performance metrics to ensure that positive and constructive feedback is being shared back with the teams.
The Results
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Some significant results obtained by our Client included:
- Sustained levels of loading 20% more work orders per FTE in all areas over 2018 levels.
- Year-to-Date productivity improvements are at an average of 20% over 2018 levels.
- 10% increase in recoveries as a percent of internal labour costs.
- 34% reduction in overtime which also includes a 30% reduction in overtime per employee.
- 32% improvement in Trouble Response crew effectiveness (total response time per average incident per person).
- Year-to-Date improvements in OMA labour-in-charges for Trouble Response crews are at an average of 30% decrease over 2018 levels.
Annualized Savings
For Phase 1 and Phase 2
Long Term Work Continuation
- Two employees trained to be Sustainment Facilitators.
- Structured Sustainment Schedule in place that defines weekly activities required at all levels to hold one another accountable for compliance.
- Internal Audits in place to measure compliance to the key activities on a monthly basis.
- External Audits in place to be completed by PVA Resources on a regular basis.
- Communication and feedback mechanisms in place to share results and priorities back to all members of the Power Delivery teams on a regular basis.
