A partnership of leading MRO solution providers that includes IHS, Xtivity, PCA, and NRG will provide Bruce Power with a single unified solution for the organization to achieve new levels of operational excellence, organizational effectiveness and risk management that help deliver low-cost, reliable, safe, and clean electricity to its customers.
“Our partnership was chosen because we are a single source with a track record of success, delivering the complete set of capabilities that Bruce Power requires to truly transform the business from a cradle-to-grave MRO lifecycle point of view,” said John Cowan, president, Xtivity. “With the right tools, expertise and business processes to fully enable stakeholders as they create, procure, store, issue and divest MRO materials, Bruce Power will be best-positioned to foster continuous improvement while optimally managing operational risk and investment.”
“We were looking for a single strategic supplier with a proven ability to help drive effective change management throughout the organization by empowering our colleagues with established technology and best practices that are tailored to the industry-specific needs of its clients and the highly specialized nature of MRO supply chains,” said Ross Thompson, project manager overseeing the Supply Transformation Project. “With a single MRO Lifecycle Management solution, we can achieve our transformational objectives that will significantly streamline operations and reduce inventory costs, while increasing material availability, operational safety, and equipment reliability across the asset base.”
With eight nuclear reactors in operation, Bruce Power is the world’s largest nuclear-generating facility, supplying 6,300 megawatts of electricity to Ontario’s power grid, or 30 percent of homes, schools, hospitals, and businesses in the province.
Bruce Power’s enterprise-level MRO Lifecycle Management solution will provide analytical tools and best practices to help the company more efficiently manage hundreds of thousands of MRO materials and spare parts, which today consume a significant portion of the organization’s $200 million materials budget.
A unified information strategy that optimizes MRO supply chain operations will contribute to the company’s top strategic objectives, including the attainment of an integrated operating model, maximizing operating efficiency and unlocking its workforce talent pool. It will also deliver operational improvements to outage performance, equipment reliability and asset management.
For the initial phase of its supply chain transformation, Bruce Power selected IHS MRO solutions to enhance, optimize and sustain a single system for enterprise governance of MRO supply items. This trusted MRO data repository will become the foundation for subsequent project phases and continuous improvement initiatives.
“Safety, reliability, and sustainability of critical assets as well as MRO supply chain operations are an integral part of operational excellence for any asset-intensive company,” said Scott Lockhart, vice president, operational excellence & risk management for IHS. “Trying to manage all of the critical data and work processes across multiple systems without accommodating the unique characteristics of MRO is inefficient, difficult and prone to risk. The IHS MRO solution provides powerful automated tools and industry-specific knowledge bases tailored to the specialized needs of MRO supply chain management, turning data into knowledge for faster, more confident decision-making that drives operational excellence.”
Targeting initial estimated hard savings of $4 million and $30 million in annual recurring savings, a unified MRO information strategy will help Bruce Power efficiently govern well over 300,000 SKU of MRO inventory and achieve its primary objective of greater MRO material availability. It will also deliver significant improvements to labor productivity, inventory management, equipment reliability and procurement spend.
“Safety is our number one focus and the key to our success,” Thompson said. “Bottom line, having the right materials at the right time is critical. Improved MRO parts management correlates directly to greater material availability, which in turn aligns directly to equipment reliability. The result will be greater revenues for Bruce Power and the opportunity to supply low-cost, reliable, safe, and clean electricity to our customers.”
