Earned-hour productivity increases 33%.
Required staff levels are reduced by 20%.
Strategic Intent
Client’s five-year strategic plan calls for significantly increased productivity – to keep costs flat by not filling retiree vacancies.
Situation
- Large power generation company operates facilities throughout Canada, the United States, Mexico and Australia
- CEO focused on increasing long-term shareholder value
- Deregulation creates imbalance between service levels and costs
- More efficient operations critical to corporate goal attainment
- Nearly half of hydro workforce (in 13 plants) eligible for retirement in next five years
- Succession planning is a major management concern
Issues and Barriers
- Operations driven by old culture and reactive management processes
- Supervisors not setting clear employee expectations
- Large variances between planned and actual work activities
- Excessive overtime managed ineffectively
- No record of preventive maintenance frequencies
- Work planning and scheduling based on inaccurate or outdated standards
Key Implementations
- Redesign of all critical processes, including barrier-free standards, overtime and dispatching controls
- Supervisory systems and controls for field foremen, including field audits, management reporting and continuous improvement tools
- Expert models that clearly define roles and responsibilities, with special emphasis on foremen’s tasks
- Accurate methodology to determine crew size requirements
Results
Productivity Improvements (Earned Hours vs. Work Hours)
With project completion, CEO is one step closer to five-year goal. Results include:
- Earned hour productivity increases by 33%
- Required staff levels reduced by 20%
- Revised standards to average correction factor of 45%
- Creation of “stress-free environment” for hydro operations manager
Client Perspective
Brooks met all of their commitments. They did a great job of helping our managers achieve a significant productivity improvement.
— General Manager, Hydro Operations
