Hydropower SPE achieves 4.3:1 ROI through Maintenance Excellence Program

Background

Hydropower is a cornerstone of Brazil’s energy infrastructure, contributing significantly to the nation’s electricity supply. In 2023, hydropower accounted for 67% of Brazil’s electricity generation, totalling 427 TWh. The country has 109,896 MW of installed hydropower capacity, and 60% of its estimated 172 GW of hydro potential has been developed.

The temporary halt of operations at Brazil’s Santo Antônio hydropower plant (3,568 MW) in 2023 due to low water levels highlights the critical need for resilient hydropower infrastructure. This directly relates to client’s goals for their corporation as it underscores the importance of enhanced systems for mitigating risks associated with climate variability and ensuring operational reliability. The incident at Santo Antônio emphasises the importance of effective downtime management. Enhanced systems for planning, scheduling, and control can minimise downtime and maintain operational efficiency even during challenging environmental conditions.

The Challenge

The client launched their operational excellence project with the strategic objectives of improving reliability and optimising costs. Given our specialised expertise within this area, the client engaged Renoir for support. Renoir conducted an analysis of the maintenance function’s organisation to assess the current situation compared to best practice.

The Maintenance Pyramid World Class Standard was used as a benchmark to clarify which processes, management systems and tools required improvement.

The primary intent was twofold:

1) To identify opportunities to fortify the core aspects of ‘Planning, Scheduling, and Control’.

2) To enhance the framework of the third-party contracting model.

Specific areas needing improvement were identified during the analysis, including:

• Lack of Availability & Downtime Management.
• Poor planning and schedule processes, or attainment measurement and metrics.
• Non-utilisation of Failure Mode and Incomplete Impact Analysis.
• Low Wrench Time – 52% (Productivity and Quality, an average across 5 Contracts).
• High level of rework and lack of procedures.
• Unreliable information contained with various systems.
• Lack of established supervision routines.
• Incomplete model for contracting services and a lack of fundamental information

Following the initial analysis, Renoir was invited to assist the client with an implementation programme to deliver the identified improvements.

The Approach

The Maintenance Excellence Programme is a structured methodology. The programme focused on improving and sustainable maintenance processes and management systems.

Project Approach

Management Action Teams (MATs): This program was structured around two Management Action Teams:

Maintenance Management: Focused on reducing downtime and improving productivity.

Third-Party Hiring Model: Included a review of contracts.

Multidisciplinary Groups: The MAT teams were formed by multidisciplinary groups that contributed to the development and implementation of management system elements.

Task Force: A full-time Task Force was established to assist the MATs in developing and implementing the required changes in their own areas. The task force, consisting of client staff and supported by Renoir consultants, actively contributed to the sustainable implementation. The MAT leader, MAT members, task force members, maintenance technicians, and engineers were also involved.

Post-Treatment Phase: The transformation programme focused on a culture of continuous improvement.

The Implementation

The program began with the Renoir Focus Process®, which was specifically developed to foster ownership and sustainability. We facilitated the review and critique of processes, procedures and key elements of the Maintenance Management Control System in collaboration with team members.

Below are some of the initiatives that took place, which includes:

1. Entire execution team was trained in understanding and acting on gaps between actual and targeted performance.
2. A weekly review meeting model was implemented, and the team was coached in addressing the root causes of performance variances using the improved management system.
3. A total 325 hours of training was provided to the Maintenance Team, focused on improving the quality of information in the IBM Maximo system.

This process brought about several changes to the client’s way of working, which became integrated into their standard practices within maintenance and contracts. Some of the changes include:

• Implementation of a structured system featuring Weekly Review Meetings, D-1 Meetings, and Maintenance Performance Reports
• Implementation of dashboards to monitor Maintenance Performance, Adherence Rate of Notes, Appropriation Rate, Work Sample, and Master Plan, providing a visual overview of key metrics.
• Adoption of an “open book” policy for proposed prices and introduction of checklists to ensure the technical, legal, and financial qualification of contractors.