High Profile

Case Study: Electrix

The Company

Power generation and distribution is a dynamic and challenging business. Electrix must continually innovate to provide cost-effective transmission, line maintenance and construction solutions. Success requires reliable business processes delivering real time reporting with 100% reliability and transparency.

With over 1,000 staff based in offices throughout New Zealand and Australia, Electrix is one of New Zealand's largest providers of electrical services.

Whether it’s involved in helicopter-assisted live line work or installing new electrical systems in capital projects, Electrix provides a comprehensive range of products and services in the commercial, industrial and high voltage power systems sectors.

Quality, safety and integrity are competitive advantages for this specialist contractor that operates in an environment where mistakes can be deadly.

The Challenge

Electrix was recently awarded the contract with Vector Crossroads to become Vector’s gas service provider in the North Island. The company created a new division, QSE to deal specifically with quality, safety and environment issues that arose within the contract.

This unit is responsible for critical issues such as ensuring network integrity and safety. The operating environment poses unique safety concerns that require highly trained staff, consistently reliable equipment and appropriate work clothing. Electrix was also contractually obligated to provide regular reporting that showed the company was meeting key performance indicators (KPI) set by Vector.

These conditions required the provision of highly-accurate data collected on site from different locations. Members of the QSE team travel to sites to check on the progress of various jobs and ensure Vector’s stringent standards and targets are being met.

Vector also insisted on a health and safety system that had clear incident and accident reporting functionality, as well as accurate training records to monitor staff competencies. This ensures roles are only assigned to people with adequate training, reducing risk and lost time..

The Solution

Electrix chose High Profile’s fiCS system to meet its reporting needs and maintain training records and electrical equipment testing registers.

Because the QSE business unit within Electrix is new, QSE Coordinator Gary Richards has faced several challenges including hiring new staff and introducing a new software system.

Richards struggled initially with too few staff with the relevant work experience and competencies to enter data into the system. However there have been several advantages that have come with introducing the fiCS solution at the same time as creating the business unit.

"The main benefit is that we are going to have accurate data right from day one. We are also getting into good habits from the beginning. The implementation of the fiCS system has also gone smoothly thanks to one of the High Profile consultants being onsite to work through the initial set up and provide the relevant training."

Richards found the set-up process, subsequent uptake and acceptance by staff was faster because of fiCS’s ease of use.

"The immediate thing that struck me about the fiCS software is how user friendly and intuitive it is. There was some training involved but once staff had a general overview of how the software worked, most people picked it up within the first hours of using it. They understood the functions the first time they used it."

As a result of the ease-of-use and clear reporting functions, Richards has found QSE team members have become more proactive in their management tasks.

In addition the reporting functionality of the fiCS software is exceeding Richards expectations.

"The information and reports that you get off fiCS are way above anything I’ve worked with before. In a previous role I worked with another software tracking tool that focussed on. health and safety. While it worked well to report day-to-day incidents, it didn’t include any quality measures and did not have particularly high-level reporting functions."

Richards says in addition the system was at least eight years old and had never been maintained or upgraded.

"In comparison fiCS is supreme. The level of data and the way it is interpreted is the most comprehensive I’ve worked with. Contractually we are obliged to supply data including accurate reporting on competencies of staff, relevant training, electrical testing equipment, and warranties on equipment.

"These monthly reports have to show we are meeting significant key performance indicators so it’s critical we a high degree of confidence in our information. There is a vast body of data to process and in the past this has been a labour intensive and costly process.

"The fiCS system generates reports that show we are meeting our audit targets and tracks corrective actions initiated. It documents our compliance status in real time."

For Richards in his role as Quality, Safety and Environment Coordinator, an important solution fiCS provided was the ability for audits to be done in the field using hand-held PDAs.

"Information about whether crew had the right safety gear, traffic management issues and also an audit of the quality of the job could be loaded straight into the system," says Richards. "Corrective actions were assigned immediately. There is a clear trail of the progress of the incident between it happening and the corrective action. Reports make it easy to monitor corrective actions improving the efficiency of our field teams."

The simplicity and functionality of the fiCS solution has eased the growing pains of the new QSE department. With so much to concentrate on, Richards says having an efficient record keeping and process management tool that consistently produces reliable data has meant one less thing for him to worry about.