The energy and utility services industry is facing increased demands and changing expectations in customer service, regulatory affairs and economic and technological imperatives. Their operations and infrastructure environment has been forever altered.
PA’s experienced energy infrastructure consultants provide innovative solutions to help utilities overcome these challenges and excel in the marketplace.
Client benefits
PA's insights provide clients with an increased understanding of how their business performance compares with the industry and peers. This view provides a valuable perspective on well suited opportunities for improvement. PA provides expert guidance for business process improvement in all areas of operations and maintenance as well as capital investment decisions. PA's consultation process incorporates the principle of knowledge transfer to client's staff, which ensures that objectives are sustained and met from insight to implementation.
Clients seek out and return to PA for its depth and breadth of experience from customer service, credit and collections, to electric distribution reliability improvement, asset management and resource planning. PA has worked with the majority of the investor-owned utilities in the US, Europe, Africa and Asia as well as government and military utility operations on major bases throughout the U.S., enabling business process improvements to enhance the systems and installations for the client and possible purchasers in privatization initiatives.
PA’s approach has helped provide clients with a clear path for obtaining the desired cost and operational efficiencies, while successfully managing regulatory and other stakeholder concerns and constraints.
Asset management
Asset centric companies around the world are striving to improve customer service, optimize earnings and balance their capital portfolios to sustain the business. Effective asset management can deliver all three. PA believes that successful asset management (AM) requires a holistic framework to integrate six key business elements: Process, Data, Systems, People & Organization, Performance Management and Strategy across the asset lifecycle.
The value of PA's approach is in taking the "insights to implementation" aspect of a holistic AM framework through three phases:
- assess existing AM capability
- identify opportunities and implement AM improvement initiatives
- sustain and continuously improve asset management.
Phase 1: Assess existing asset management capability
PA has developed an asset management capability maturity model (AM CMM) that provides this assessment. AM CMM is a diagnostic tool for determining existing asset management capability within an organization against a scale from basic to best practice across the asset lifecycle in six core areas: Process, Data, Systems, People & Organization, Performance Management and Strategy. The results show the utility's performance in each of the six key element areas and in each of the asset lifecycle functions.
Phase 2: Implement improvement initiatives
It is important that a roadmap is defined including quick wins and longer term strategic projects. Cost benefit assessment for each improvement initiative should be undertaken to ensure the business will benefit from the overall AM improvement initiative.
Phase 3: Sustaining effective AM and demonstrating continual improvement
PA's Asset Management process applies this rigor to the process. The decision process to adopt or improve an asset management program will vary depending on: the organizational structure of the utility; the processes already in place to support asset management by the utility; and the strategies that address the needs of other stakeholders.
Utility benchmarking – Polaris
PA offers benchmarking programs that provide strategic decision makers and tactical operators the insight they need to navigate through business obstacles and implement performance improvement initiatives.
PA's Polaris program is a comprehensive discovery process into a company's business operations that provide the benefits such as independence, deliverables, insight and analysis, networking and interactions, performance improvement.
PA prepares for the journey by taking an inventory of your business’ strengths and opportunities in one or all of the following areas: Customer service and Transmission and distribution.
Polaris program characteristics include:
Tailored to the industry
The most comprehensive, objective and useful benchmarking studies available in the utility industry
Unique characteristics
Measures such as line of business and service area density are addressed to ensure tailored feedback and peer-to-peer measurement
Highly participatory
Co-operative planning, data validation and results meetings are completed in conjunction with our clients.
Detail oriented
Insight into service quality measures, practice information and cost comparisons provide for detailed best practice review and comparison.
Diversity
A broad spectrum of participants including electric, gas, water and combination utilities.
Cost-effectiveness
Participants realize substantial benefits to their company each year, achieved through implementing improvement strategies through PA assistance.
Performance improvement
Each Polaris program participant benefits from PA insights in the area of potential performance improvement initiatives which can result in cost reduction and increased level of service.
Click here to read more about Polaris
Operations improvement
There is an implicit trade-off between CAPEX/OPEX and energy network performance that neither utilities nor regulators can easily quantify. Complexity modeling hinders explicit consideration of this trade-off in the asset management and cost/budget determination process.
PA provides an optimal balance between CAPEX and OPEX by utilizing objective tools to optimize the cost / performance trade-off and quantify expected network reliability while assessing different maintenance qualities and their impact on each network component's performance. As a result of linking preventative maintenance actions with expected failure rates, PA is able to determine what each maintenance action may cost and therefore able to link corrective maintenance policies with restoration time (quality of service)
PA’s energy clients benefit from improved network performance and reduced operations and maintenance costs. With the help of a proprietary PA model that becomes an integral part of the asset management process, a transparent capital expenditure prioritization process is created that addresses all stakeholders and provides a key step toward better shareholder value decisions.
Our reliability certification process helps clients understand the process of reporting their network performance in a comprehensive and objective manner and highlights areas for improvement, yielding both client and customer benefits.
Regulatory audit support
Meeting the requirements of energy regulators and regulatory audits is a challenge continually faced by electric utilities. PA identifies, prioritizes and improves issues for clients in advance of public utility commission audits and closely manages all aspects of the regulatory audit process.
PA has extensive experience of delivering value in a short timeframe when a swift and independent assessment is required by providing services including organizational reviews and audit management.
Extensive experience in and knowledge of the utility business environment enables PA to focus on specific issues identified in utility commission audits, including accounting and transaction allocation protocols, risk and business management policies, operational processes and procedures, market modeling and IT applications.
PA works with organizations to establish day-to-day audit management protocols in areas such as document submission and review, interview preparation and scheduling and data request response and review. PA implements a strict project management approach to audit management, including formulation of an audit steering committee (responsible for overseeing the audit at a strategic level) and an audit management team (responsible for day-to-day management of data responses, interview preparation and overall coordination), each comprising PA and client personnel. Finally, PA creates a project office that serves as a central repository for all relevant documents, status reports and interview schedules.
Resource planning and efficiency
PA evaluates people and staffing levels, organizational designs, models and processes and the use of information technology and systems to make step-change improvements in output, cost and customer satisfaction.
In working with clients, PA develops resource management strategies that equate to create long-term solutions by building a compelling case for change, engaging key stakeholders and leaders, defining a solution to deliver business objectives and driving delivery and change.
Retail service improvement
PA provides expertise to the utility industry in the integration of retail service improvement initiatives that maximize organizational, process, alternative sourcing and technology constructs. PA’s wealth of experience extends from insight to implementation and the facilitation of risk management at each stage. Subject matter experts work with the client to address each area of the customer service process, including call center operations, billing processes, meter and field services, back-office practices and processes, as well as customer problem resolution.
PA’s expertise in retail service improvement is invaluable when cost cutting measures are exhausted, performance-based ratemaking rewards are limited and regulatory demands and constraints are increasing. Benefits are also evident in client environments where technological improvements are expensive and risky, customer expectations increase, competitive threats increase as services are unbundled and market consolidation is in process.
PA engages with clients to jointly construct strategies and redesign processes to overcome these challenges. Our understanding of the processes involved and of regulatory constraints enables clients to reconfigure all aspects of their retail customer environment to improve service, debt collection and cost while at the same time satisfy regulatory requirements.
Credit and collections
PA’s experience with most investor-owned utilities has yielded a suite of solutions for putting credit and cash management programs back on track. PA's solutions make it easier to measure and manage credit, cash management and collection processes; allowing utility operations to immediately recognize financial improvements.
Forecasting
Forecasting debt and write-off levels using macro-economic indicators and internal credit and collections variables allows utilities to anticipate and prepare for foreseeable changes. PA’s comprehensive forecasting model will improve decision support and business planning capabilities by forecasting delinquencies and bad debts 6 to 18 months out for both residential and non-residential customers by region.
