SPECIAL REPORT
Three ways to deliver efficiency across the capital asset project delivery lifecycle by Geoff Roberts, Director of Energy Industry Strategy, Oracle Construction and Engineering
The utilities sector is dominated by discussions of smart cities and their future needs. For Australia, its long-term prosperity is linked to the performance of our cities, where 80 percent of Australia’s population growth will occur in our five largest cities – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. With a forecast of an additional 10 million to Australia’s current population by 2043, the needs and requirements of our planet’s megacities is primed to increase exponentially over the next few decades.
With so much focus on changing the way cities operate – from the way energy for homes and businesses is provided and billed, to the new demands on the grid as urban areas become kitted out with increasingly sophisticated and energyhungry technology – the time has come for energy infrastructure, in particular, to react quickly to the new demands being placed on them. To do this, energy providers need to review their capital assets across the entire portfolio to make sure they’re set up to deliver on the power needs of today, and the future. From empowering employees with better project management, minimising risk during dreaded outage events, and managing decommissioning projects, technology will sit at the heart of any positive change.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE WITH PROJECT MANAGEMENT Project management is often lamented as one of the biggest inhibitors to energy site efficiency. Projects can become weighed down by dozens of key documents, spread across a variety of key stakeholders and disparate divisions. Technology that can provide full visibility on project data, regardless of location, is critical to working more productively. Gone
are the days when IT teams would be forced to manually install software on individual staff members’ computers or laptops – the cloud has given workers access to real-time project information anytime, anywhere. This also gives energy site operators realtime visibility and control across all grid and pipeline assets, on a single platform, which means workers can deliver quality project schedules, maximise resource capacity and minimise project risks.
“Gone are the days when IT teams would be forced to manually install software on individual staff members’ computers or laptops – the cloud has given workers access to real-time project information anytime, anywhere. ” SOLVING THE STO DILEMMA Across the energy industry, STO events often are not optimally managed, making them a needlessly high contributor to a site’s non-availability, risk level, and cost. A
Construction Engineering Australia • Feb/Mar 2020
55
