CitiPower and Powercor are Victoria’s largest electricity suppliers, delivering electricity to almost 1.1million residential and commercial customers across Australia; and in 2013 the companies were facing many operational challenges. Nova Systems was engaged to deliver Operational Excellence consulting services to CitiPower and Powercor, to inform the development of the Operational Excellence 3-5 Year Strategy.

Nova Systems reviewed the CitiPower and Powercor operational process, procedure and performance documentation; and conducted multiple stakeholder engagement sessions to obtain a contextual understanding of the operational challenges currently being faced. This information was collated and two facilitated Focus Group sessions featuring key stakeholders directly involved in conducting or managing business operations was completed.

The Focus Group sessions yielded an Operational Excellence Framework heat map to highlight the current state of strengths and weaknesses of CitiPower and Powercor’s current operational capabilities. Using this tool and the outcomes of the Operational Excellence assessment process, recommended short-term and high priority actions and Operational Excellence strategic initiatives for CitiPower and Powercor were developed. This project highlighted the importance of not prioritising production over safety.

It is important that workers do not suffer from a vulnerability of Mindlessness in day-to-day business operations and to push ahead to accomplish given tasks without being mindful of the potential for disaster. Good communication and adequate training is always required to respond to Operational Incidents and to learn from the errors.