The power company E.ON Benelux, a part of the German
E.ON, registered at the stock exchange, produces and
distributes electricity and heat to energy-intensive business customers, to distribution companies and to private individuals.
Moreover, E.ON Benelux distributes gas, purchased on the
world market, to private individuals and business customers.
Currently, E.ON Benelux in the Netherlands possesses 6
natural gas/coal-fired power stations with a joint capacity of
approximately 2,000 MW electrical power. These 2,000 MW
do not include the 1,100 MW of the coal-fired power station
currently under construction on the Maasvlakte and the
takeover of 2 power stations in Belgium with a joint capacity
of approx. 1,000 MW.
Challenge
Increasing the reliability of the systems and reducing the
costs of downtime was PDM's challenge. In order
to achieve this, PDM started by mapping out the status of the 3
main processes at the coal red power station on Maasvlakte, namely:
- Ordering
- Daily Maintenance
- Trouble Analysis
Once an inventory had been made of the existing
approach, we described per individual process what the ideal
situation should look like. Next, we started on the implementation thereof. Since the implementation of the required
changes in an existing process is a quite time-consuming and
complex affair, all parties concerned first need to be convinced of the usefulness of the changes. This is apart from the
fact that the processes do not always immediately run as they
should. So such processes require our constant supervision.
As soon as the above-mentioned 3 processes had been
successfully completed, we proceeded by describing the
power station’s other core processes and incorporated these
in the quality system as well in the following years.
After
some time, the Maasvlakte project was expanded to the other
E.ON. production locations. By early 2009 the twenty core
processes were all described in a quality system and so, as
such, they are secured within the organisation. Lloyds, the
independent certification organisation subsequently certified
this quality system according to PAS55.
Cooperation
For sound reasons, the focus is presently on ‘granting more attention to collaboration’ and on ‘really doing the things as agreed upon’. The E.ON project of old in the meantime has developed into a continuous process. The process has the management’s uninterrupted attention for the implementation of more improvements, in order to even further raise the quality level. Turning a process of continuous improvement, as described above, into a success requires good mutual communication, clear explanations on possibly implemented actions for improvement, as well as the performance of regular checks.
It is worth mentioning that the objectives have become much clearer and the reports more orderly, such as, for example the Dashboard software for redirecting projects towards the objective.
Worldwide
In line with the above mentioned project, E.ON initiated their worldwide assets management to achieve a single uniform approach based on the ‘best practices’.
Per process the best approach is selected and then implemented at all E.ON's plants worldwide.
