Syntex’s solutions offer innovative methods that can help utility companies identify and mitigate these risks. IMPACT ERM® Suite is the leading technology used by progressive companies worldwide to do all of the following:
- Lower exposure to risks
- Reduce losses
- Improve quality
- Raise productivity
- Facilitate enterprise-wide standard risk mitigation policies
- Provide comprehensive operation risk analysis
Ways that Utilities Companies use IMPACT ERM
Data Collection & Reporting
IMPACT ERM Suite’s facilitates data collection and reporting through easy-to-use interfaces delivered via the Web. It brings immediate value through consolidation of disparate management systems and other systems while storing data into a single-integrated database. Company employees and contractors can use simple forms to enter data even in remote locations, while leadership and decision makers easily analyze information to address potential or existing risks across the enterprise.
Regulatory Compliance
In the Utility Industry even the smallest price revisions can have dramatic impact on corporate profits. Regulations are extremely complex and interdependent making regulatory compliance more difficult to manage. IMPACT assists Utility companies in their compliance initiatives. It helps to facilitate inspections, audits, findings and analysis by delivering to management a high level of crucial and actionable information, improving the responsiveness and measuring the effectiveness.
Distribution & Other Asset Maintenance
Utility companies fully understand the substantial financial impact that unexpected events, such as a forced outage, can have compared to a planned maintenance outage. IMPACT empowers Utilities to be more proactive in their asset maintenance programs by identifying problems in the plant, distribution assets (e.g. wires, microwave, towers, etc.) and supporting operations (e.g. line trucks, heavy equipment, etc.) to facilitate and prioritize action items required to fix these issues.
IMPACT assists Utility companies in the execution of preventative maintenance (PM) programs and other management system programs geared to reduce the probability of forced outages caused by equipment failures and other preventative risks, therefore improving system reliability and performance. Furthermore, with IMPACT, companies have the analytical tools needed to examine assessments, findings and other types of collected data in which to determine gaps in the system and identify risks, complementing existing predictive maintenance (PdM) programs.
Operations Management Systems
IMPACT helps Utilities facilitate the management of system elements, compliance, continuous improvement, communication, analysis and reporting around a variety of management systems and excels in enabling the execution of these programs. Action item workflow built in IMPACT engages all levels of the workforce in the identification and resolution of prevention program weaknesses.
Type of Utilities Companies that use IMPACT ERM
Electric, Gas and Other Utilities
The Utility industry continues to undergo structural changes that involve partial or complete unbundling of the generation, transmission and distribution activities of the industry into separate business units. Around the globe, the reformation intensifies competition (especially in the generation and retail segments) and further complicates operations, regulations and the way capital investments are evaluated.
Management of aging assets, especially in the generation and transmission sectors, impacts the industry by and large. An example of this is in the US Electric Utility Industry. The August 14, 2003 blackout – affecting over 50 million people over 9,266 square miles across eight U.S. States and two Canadian provinces – served as a sober reminder of the aging electric power grid, under stress and no longer keeping up with the demands of a growing and changing economy. Asset management coupled with expected workforce shortages1 will further exasperate the Industry’s ability to maintain and/or increase electricity supply.
IMPACT ERM® software provides a framework to capture and manage incidents and analyze trends to help keep losses from occurring. IMPACT can capture, facilitate and help execute:
- Plant, substation and distribution network inspections and assessments
- Prioritize action items and communicate across the enterprise
- Safety regulation compliance and reporting
- Behavioral-based training
- Management programs, such as maintenance assessments (e.g. T&D Maintenance, Substation Preventative, etc.), damage prevention programs, etc.
- Provide comprehensive operation risk analysis
IMPACT can facilitate the inspection process enabling the execution of these management systems. The software engages collaboration between leadership and workforce in prioritizing and communicating risk mitigation. Employees can analyze trends to help identify and mitigate losses before they happen.
1The industry is actively engaged in addressing the workforce shortages due to expected “Baby Boomer Generation” retirement within the next 5 to 10 years (as much as 50% in some organizations according to the US DOE) limiting the nation’s ability to maintain and/or increase electricity supply.
Business Value for Utilities Companies
Measure, manage, and mitigate risk.
IMPACT Enterprise, flagship product of IMPACT ERM® Suite, delivers capabilities for operations planning, incident, assessment, quality and environmental management, regulatory compliance assessment, and other risk management. Integrated communication and workflow processes non-intrusively engage leadership and workforce in reactive as well as proactive risk identification and execution of action items to help strengthen risk reduction systems. Utility companies of any size can rapidly and affordably deploy a standardized set of business processes based on industry best practices.
Understand patterns of operations and performance.
IMPACT Exec Analytical & Reporting Tool provides sophisticated analysis, reporting and scenario development tools. They help Utility companies analyze past experience to more accurately predict future requirements or gaps within their performance management system. Gaps and requirements become clear – such as regulatory non-compliance or potential for loss. Your system then engages all employees in prioritization of remediation and execution of action items.
Summary
For utility companies, the risk could hardly be higher: regulatory compliance, workforce shortages, unexpected events and outages, maintenance reliability and of course, the human element.
Today, these companies must also conduct and manage daily operations across far-flung plants and enterprises. They must deal with globalization, regulatory compliance, heightened environmental pressures, mergers and acquisitions, and ever-changing business and market conditions. All of this combines to make operational risk management increasingly difficult.
These are precisely the reasons why utility companies around the world that are among the most dedicated to reducing risk and improving safety have chosen to deploy the Syntex IMPACT ERM® Suite solution for enterprise risk management.
Contact a Syntex energy
or utilities specialist
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