Electric Transmission & Distribution

Across the industry, electric transmission and distribution organizations are facing an array of challenges. There is ongoing pressure to improve reliability and increase investment to address aging infrastructure, heightened regulator and customer sensitivity to network performance, and continued load growth. At the same time, there are restrictions on capital availability and funding.

Oliver Wyman has assisted many companies to address T&D business challenges in the areas of:

Separation of assets, and operations
Project planning and management
Asset management
Reliability improvement
New business construction and operations process excellence
Revenue leakage / managing lost electricity
Work management and field force productivity
Lean operations
Back office and support effectiveness

Recent engagement examples

Distribution business strategy: Oliver Wyman worked for a large utility seeking to focus and improve its strategic and operational direction. The utility’s goals were to improve service levels and significantly reduce costs and improve profitability. We worked closely with over 20 teams of managers and employees for six months to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of core processes. Costs and results were examined, root causes identified, and processes were benchmarked against other leading companies. Considerable cost and service improvements were implemented

Distribution operational efficiency: Oliver Wyman worked with the management team of an industry-leading utility to evaluate all activities performed within the distribution organization and identify opportunities to reduce cost without adversely affecting customer satisfaction or operational performance. A client-Oliver Wyman team identified more than 15 significant opportunities to reduce both O&M and capital costs. Representative improvements addressed contractor crew oversight to check “adder” billing, identification of underutilized fleet vehicles, an assessment of first responder workforce needs, and improved work scheduling

Delivery strategy: Oliver Wyman developed a business and organization strategy for a local distribution company. The work identified over $100 million in operational savings through work elimination and productivity improvement, and created new functions/processes to address energy supply and work management needs.

Process improvement: Oliver Wyman has helped many utilities to redesign and improve delivery-related processes. Illustrative results include a 50 percent reduction in cycle time and improved customer satisfaction scores in new service delivery; a 15 percent reduction in cycle time and improved project management in substation engineering & construction; and standardized work estimation practices and improved engineer utilization in engineering.