PROJECT PROFILE / ENTERPRISE PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE

Establishing Consistency for Capital Project Strategies

In need of an improved internal process to request, prioritize and manage capital investment projects, Cooperative Energy sought help to set up its first-ever enterprise project management office (PMO). The goal for the PMO is to increase efficiencies across all departments as the utility maintains reliable and affordable service.

PROJECT STATS

CLIENT
Cooperative Energy

LOCATION
Mississippi

COMPLETION DATE
October 2019

Cooperative Energy, a generation and transmission cooperative in Mississippi, is making strides to improve its internal process for managing capital projects and expenditures. In partnership with our team, Cooperative Energy is developing its first-ever enterprise PMO to improve communication, mitigate risk and streamline processes as it continues to invest in its future.

To launch the project enterprisewide, we obtained input from representatives within every department, asking questions about current processes, distinguishing what was working and what could improve. The resulting gap analysis — which also outlines strategy to achieve future-state operation — became the basis for a detailed business process framework and implementation plan.

 

Understanding that projects throughout the utility are executed differently depending on the department, such as a transmission project versus a generation project, our framework focused on identifying commonalities. Through collaboration with all stakeholders, this established a minimum requirement for all projects at the corporate level, while still allowing flexibility for customization.

With the plan in place, our team evaluated several software providers that would meet Cooperative Energy’s unique requirements, and recommended two options. The client eventually chose EcoSys by Hexagon. Implementation of the software began in partnership with Cooperative Energy’s internal business information systems group to see that the application could be supported in-house when complete. EcoSys will integrate with Oracle EBS and Microsoft Projects to consolidate project management needs.

The fully implemented software provides Cooperative Energy’s project engineers with a single interface to initiate projects and follow them through to execution and closeout. The EcoSys portal will also house information and lessons learned from past projects as historical documentation ongoing, including change logs, actual costs, budget information and more. Based on user feedback thus far, Cooperative Energy is also exploring the possibility of expanding the breadth of EcoSys to maintain its operations and maintenance projects in the future.

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