Xcel Energy is a combination utility serving 3.4 million electric customers and 1.9 million natural gas customers in eight states stretching from points farthest north and south. The company uses roughly 1800 different information technology (IT) platforms and their IT help desk receives, on average, 15,000 calls per month. If you thought managing a system that size was easy, think again. The global power industry is facing many challenges including meeting increased demand while keeping costs low, increased environmental and safety regulations, and an aging infrastructure and workforce. Recognizing these emerging trends, in 2003 Xcel Energy established the company's Utility Innovations program. The basic tenet of the program is that collaboration between Xcel Energy and industry experts results in superior solutions. In 2005, Meridium, Inc. was selected to partner with Xcel Energy as a member of its Utility Innovations program to help address the company's identified need to add additional meaning to their data for improvement of the management of their equipment assets.
While Xcel Energy was proficient in the collection of data, the meaning of the data - uncovering the valuable informational aspect it had to offer - was often lost locally in one of the thousands of isolated data areas. Globally, the meaning of the data remained hidden and unavailable for consideration when making important business decisions. Specifically, the company sought a solution offering the capability to consolidate data from the company's multiple data sources - IBM MAXIMO work order data, operating data (GADS), fuel consumption, real time replacement costs, boiler tube failure, equipment inspections and plant root cause analysis - and through rigorous analysis transform this data into information enabling:
- Improved PM practices
- Improved availability
- More efficient use of funds
- More accurate unit modeling
- Ability to track maintenance improvements
- Visibility into plant operational performance data
User adoption a measure of success
Identifying powerful new tools providing a pathway for improvement is just a first step. The real test comes in user adoption. There is a heightened awareness of the potential competitive advantage for companies who can accurately and consistently capture the institutional knowledge of their workforce - almost half of the utilities workforce in developed markets is approaching retirement age. User-friendliness and the ability to easily and clearly demonstrate to users the benefits of compliance are critical to the long-term use and success of technology investments.
Lou Matis, Xcel Energy's VP of Operations, is tasked with the successful implementation of new technology initiatives and is understandably sensitive to factors influencing user adoption - in particular a system's user-friendliness, functionality and ability to provide measurable results. Characteristically, new technology is taken for a test drive. A quick trip around the track with Meridium convinced him it was fast, easy-to-control and pinpointed areas for improvement, offering significant competitive advantages.
Using Meridium's metrics view functionality, within seven mouse clicks Xcel Energy was able to drill from an identified high maintenance cost related to a particular fleet all the way down to the sub-component level and pinpoint the precise culprit - a butterfly valve. In one month, over 150 people were trained and able to drill down into individual site business data to identify outliers, spot common trends and determine the sources of problems tying cost to unavailability (UOR) events. Managing the far flung empire just got exponentially easier.
Another area in which Meridium has been instrumental in helping Xcel Energy improve is in the area of work order quality. Prior to Meridium, it was difficult for work order system users to "see" the significance that accurate data held for the company, making full adoption of work processes a struggle. Using Meridium's drill down capabilities, employees across the organization are now able to see that good information, when properly used, has value and significant return-on-investment while bad information has no value and adds to cost and risk. The ability to visually demonstrate the importance of a completed work order, rather than just verbally communicating its importance, is a subtle, but powerful tool in fostering user adoption.
The power industry is facing a series of challenges that no one company can address on its own. In 2004 Xcel Energy developed a thoughtfully crafted plan for achieving operational excellence - at the apex of their model sits three words - plant asset management. With the help of Utility Innovation partners like Meridium, Xcel Energy is confident that they are now uniquely positioned to leverage all their valuable assets - people, equipment, technology, and information - strengthening their ability to shape their future to meet new challenges and the needs and expectations of their employees, customers, and shareholders.
Click here for a video presentation by Xcel Energy's Lou Matis, VP of Operations, and learn more about Xcel's:
- Energy Supply Asset Management model
- Utility Innovations program
- Fleet-wide Information Exchange program
- Value and information approach to maintenance budgeting
