SA Power Networks: Supporting power supply to 900,000+ dwellings

Overview

SA Power Networks (SAPN) is a key player in South Australia’s energy landscape as the state’s sole electricity distributor. The company’s comprehensive services include building, maintaining, and upgrading the poles, wires, and substations that deliver power to around 900,000 homes and businesses, as well as operating a 24-hour faults and emergencies hotline, maintaining street lighting for local councils and government, and taking readings of traditional SA Power Networks’ electricity meters.

With a commitment to delivering safe, reliable, and sustainable electricity, SA Power Networks manages an extensive distribution network that provides power to over 1.7 million customers.

Through a commitment to customer service and operational excellence, SA Power Networks ensures that South Australians have access to the power they need for their everyday lives.

We’ve been able to implement the RedEye system, which will be a major step forward to the communication between the engineering and the field teams”

- Peter Barnard, Head of Engineering, SA Power Networks

Key Takeaways

• Early staff buy-in to systems is critical and drives sustainable change.
• Allowing field access to engineering data significantly improves productivity.
• Mobility and user-friendliness are key considerations in adopting technology.

Challenges

Responsible for delivering electricity to 1.7 million customers across South Australia, SA Power Networks, faced operational inefficiencies. In 2017, to address safety risks and improve field operations, SAPN trialed multiple drawing management systems.

An internal survey revealed that 90% of staff struggled to find the latest drawing revisions, which posed critical safety hazards and caused operational delays. Furthermore, 33% of staff reported spending more than 10 minutes to locate the correct drawing, highlighting severe productivity issues.

These challenges underscored the urgent need for SAPN to implement a more efficient, reliable, and accessible drawing management solution to maintain safety, streamline operations, and ensure the consistent delivery of electricity to their extensive customer base.

Access to current data for field operations is vital to reducing the risk of safety incidents and unplanned outages."

-SA Power Networks

Solution

When it came to trialing RedEye, SAPN worked with Accruent to engage field and engineering teams early.

After the trials, the SAPN field team unanimously recommended the RedEye system due to its reliability and ease of use.

The field use capabilities substantially improved access to the latest information. This was an important factor for teams working remotely. RedEye also satisfied SAPN’s extensive security requirements. Given that both internal and external stakeholders needed access to the platform which provided visibility of the entire organization as it was deployed to its services providers, security management was critical.

One of the great advantages of RedEye is it also allows the field to do the markups in the way they want to. If they want to use paper, they can use paper. If they want to use an iPad or a laptop, they can use an iPad or laptop. It's really up to them how they work."

-Peter Barnard, Head of Engineering, SA Power Networks

The Benefits

Field teams now use RedEye to markup drawings in real-time, uploading changes to the cloud. This workflow automatically sends a notification to the team for approval.

Additionally, with a focus on change management for teams that were used to working with paper, RedEye’s QR code functionality now enables field workers to easily update their changes on paper, scan and automatically send into RedEye. This maintains version control and creates more effective communications across the business.

By implementing RedEye, SAPN estimates a saving of 1,044 hours in productivity every year from drawing management alone. After implementation, 91% of users reported they could easily find the latest changes. This is a dramatic increase from 10% prior to implementation.

With the latest data and drawings available to all, workplace safety has increased. The state’s power supply is more consistent as a result of more efficient maintenance and reduced power outages.

“SAPN’s implementation team reported that RedEye provided the best value for money implementation. They also indicated a return on investment in two to four years, and would only grow with time.”

Energy generators, transmission services, distribution networks and retailers play an important role in supporting economic growth and enriching lifestyles across the country with power. RedEye supports power utilities to easily manage assets, delivering projects and maintaining network efficiency and safety.

Markups have traditionally been a very unwieldy process for the amount of work that we do and the markups that are required in the field. The thing about the Accruent partnership that I absolutely love, is the fact that it automates that whole markup process from beginning to end."

And it makes it so easy for field workers, substation, and eventually line, to create the markups and get them into the system. Ultimately, that means a safer, more productive workforce."

-Peter Barnard, Head of Engineering, SA Power Networks

SA Power Networks recent awards:

• Digital Utility of the Year - Digital Utilities 2019
• Innovation in Change Award - Change Connect Awards 2017
• Australian Apprenticeships Employer Award - Australian Training Awards 2017