Improving how we manage our assets

 

We manage a vast network of electricity assets to keep the lights on, including substations, overhead lines, switch rooms, transformers and underground cables.

To ensure that the way we manage those assets is world-class we successfully sought certification to internationally-recognised asset management standard ISO55001.  

That means you can be confident that our processes, systems and our teams’ capabilities are fit-for-purpose and aligned with international best-practice. By having an industry best-practice benchmark to follow, we’re creating a continuous improvement culture where we constantly challenge the way we do things, always asking ourselves ‘is there a better way to do this?’

Looking at our business top to bottom

To achieve accreditation we developed a comprehensive asset management system (which we have called our ‘Business Capability Framework’). The Framework brings together all aspects of how our business works to manage our electricity assets – from our strategy and planning, to how our teams are organised and their competencies, how we manage our data, how we deliver our projects and maintenance, through to how we communicate with our customers – and everything in between!

To oversee it we appointed an Electricity Asset System Steering Committee to provide strategic guidance for, and to monitor the performance of, our Framework.

While we found that a lot of our existing systems and processes were already working well, we did make some improvements before we applied for certification. Here are just some of the improvements we made

  • We have improved our information management systems (‘information’ incudes things like network performance measurements, equipment characteristics and network fault data). It needs to be consistent and accurate, and processed in a way that makes it useful to the business.
  • We have improved our ‘assurance’ processes. By assurance we mean the things we do to make sure that we are complying with the benchmark standards we set ourselves, and also that we are measuring the success of improvements to processes and practices.
  • We have improved our competency frameworks, better matching and developing the skills and personnel abilities we need to be successful as a business. 
  • We introduced a network investment planning system to evaluate investment options based on a value framework. You can read more about our investment planning tool here.
  • We implemented a Change Management Framework to help our teams navigate change successfully.

Our journey to certification

In 2018 we engaged an independent consultant to give us a clear understanding of what we would need to do to meet the standard.

In 2019 we appointed a dedicated manager to oversee and co-ordinate our team’s work.

In December 2021 independent auditor AMCL confirmed provisional certification subject to making some improvements to our document management processes.

In May 2022 the AMCL team returned to review progress, and awarded us full certification.

With accreditation now in place you can be assured that we’re managing the electricity network effectively and efficiently for you.

Graphic depicting Powerco's electricity asset management framework.
The structure of our Business Capability Framework.