Pmo365 optimises portfolio of investments in the Utilities Industry

We always reiterate that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to PPM and pmo36 always aims to adapt to your organisation’s unique context to find the right PPM maturity, tools and processes that suit your needs. The following structure is simply an outline of the common industry structures for PPM we have encountered and how we have helped utility companies through every step of the process to optimise their portfolio of investments.

Utility companies often have two core portfolios (though they are not limited to these two alone) - Asset related portfolio and information and communication technology (ICT) related portfolio. You can read more about how we help your organisation’s ICT management here. For this section, we will focus more on asset-related portfolios.

Assets are items of value the businesses own ranging from physical equipment to intellectual properties. For utility companies, building and maintaining physical assets from power plants, roads, cables and much more is a large chunk of the organisation’s operations and thus is a critical portfolio that must be optimized.<

An asset-related portfolio often comprises three core functions with programs and projects grouped under them. The three functions include updating, maintaining or creating new assets with each function carrying its own unique set of PPM demands, processes and tools.

Physical assets and equipment often need updating to make sure they are applying the most effective and efficient technologies to gather, generate, convert and distribute the resources to communities. With the rate of technological advancements, these updates are occurring at a higher frequency, with increased complexity and increased costs for companies as the demand on their resource increases.

PPM systems and tools help justify, plan and execute these asset updating projects in many different ways from providing essential risk assessment to facilitating accurate cost management and budget forecasting. However, one of the distinct values of PPM for utility companies is its capacity for outage management.

When updating your assets, it is unavoidable that there is a certain period in which the asset will have to be shut down. These outages, if not managed properly, end up becoming very costly for companies. As these outages carry a large set of risks, costs, and resources, it has become increasingly common to plan for outages as a project which allows decision makers to get a better idea of the holistic benefits and costs of updating your assets.

Specific ways effective PPM systems, tools and process can help your outage management include:

• Assistance in planning and scheduling before and during the outage.
• Streamlining the monitoring and reporting activities during the outage period/project.
• Accounting for project work variations and calculating its overall impact of the cost and timeframe of the outage.
• Allowing onsite facility maintenance teams managers to focus on client communication during the outage.

In a similar vein to updating, assets must also be frequently maintained to ensure they are running at peak performance and will not run into costly issues down the line. Similar to updating, asset maintenance activities can also be planned, coordinated and executed within a project framework and greatly benefits from the aforementioned outage management.

Effective PPM systems also make asset maintenance easier through the automation of recurring tasks and projects. Just as easy as it is to plan a recurring event in your calendar, pmo365 can help make the planning of your maintenance projects just as easy though integrating all your processes, systems, tools and data across your entire organisation. No matter who picks up the project, they will have access to all the key data and reporting processes across the board.

To meet increasing demand, updating assets may not be enough and new assets need to be made. These projects, often dubbed Capital Works projects, carry the typical needs of any project - ranging from risk management, cost management, resource management and much more. Effective PPM systems help integrate all the vital processes related to project management from beginning to end on a single platform to give project managers and decision makers complete visibility and control over their projects.

PPM systems can take this a step further and address a key challenge of the utilities industry - funding sources and allocation. As discussed above, capital for projects comes from many different streams with its unique individual requirements for its use. An effective PPM system easily identifies which finance sources are viable for the specific project, the availability of said capital and its impacts on the project’s cost projections. They also have the added ability of providing clear documentation and reporting of the impacts of each individual finance source which is incredibly useful for executives to effectively report back to key stakeholders and investors.

If you want to find out more about how pmo365 can benefit your company’s operations and PPM activities, make sure to book a free 30 minute PPM audit and speak directly with our PPM experts.

It is very important that the information which is being given to the C-Suite is of value to them, so they can make decisions which will benefit the business. By integrating with project tools, a PPM can ensure that the information given to the C-Suite is both relevant, and in real-time.

In the past, the process of collating and delivering project information to a C-Suite, was a long and expensive process. Not only were there large amounts of admin costs, but the long procedure meant that the information which was eventually presented to the C-Suite was not real-time, meaning that the C-Suite could potentially receive information which was only relevant to the business in the past. In many cases, information would be received weeks too late, and the C-Suite would use this information to make uninformed decisions and the company would suffer.

With a PPM such as pmo365 in place, there is zero chance, issues such as this could occur. By integrating with the project tools, the PMO (and in turn the C-Suite) would always have access to information which is real-time. The C-Suite now has the ability to make well informed decisions, which will benefit the business right now.