Electric Energy T&D - Index

Electric Energy T&D - EE Magazine March / April 2009 - Index

Week W begins…
The linemen assigned to work with the contractor had worked hard
all weekend to fix downed power lines and restore service. They need
time off for fatigue, and besides, there is still some more work to be
done to fully recover from the storm’s effects. There is no way they
can work with the contractor on week W.
Consider Harry’s options. He must postpone the work by at least a
week – this decision is forced, but it then opens up a long list of notso-easy
issues and questions:
• The internal-workforce crew assigned for this job has other jobs
planned for next week (“Week W+1”). They will be available the
following week (W+ ), but this would delay the overall project by
far too long.
• The digging contractor is under contract guaranteeing a certain
amount of work per month. Delaying this job to the next month will
place the contractor under the guaranteed quota, forcing Harry to
pay twice for the work – once this month and again next month.
38 I March-April 2009 Issue
All in the Family: Managing Outsourced
Service Contractors
By Dr. Moshe BenBassat, Chairman and CEO
ClickSoftware
For once, Harry left his office early on Friday afternoon, with all plans for next week’s work completed. In particular, he had coordinated all
the work required for laying a new underground electricity distribution circuit: He made sure that the contractor doing the digging has the
right permits and called the contractor to verify one last time that the required people and digging equipment are available. He assigned
a crew of his own workers to be on site and lay the cables, working with the contractor, and made sure his linemen were available as well
since substantial parts of the work need to be performed with the digging contractor and the linemen working side-by-side.
Everything was ready to go first thing on Monday morning of the week we’ll call “Week W”. However, the weekend storm changed all that.
For Harry, events like this are part of his job. It has happened to him before, and he expects it will happen again. He is resigned to it, but
should he be? Isn’t there a better way? Obviously, Harry doesn’t have the technology to decree that there will be no more storms, but he
may be able to change the planning processes and deploy new technology in order to make it much easier, faster and cheaper for him to
revise his plans following small and large disruptions.
Along the way, he will also be able to use the same approach to improve the use of non-badged contractors in customer-facing tasks,
too. This is the subject of this article, which will examine the implications of several types of outsourcing for electricity T&D companies,
contractors and customers, and also present tips for overcoming the challenges many companies face when managing contractors to
achieve smooth planning and execution: Ensuring work occurs when, where and how it is supposed to, regardless of whether the work is
done by contractors or in-house employees.
• The contractor may not have sufficient capacity for week W+ .
Harry also has other contractors on call, but because they aren’t
under a guaranteed-quota contract, their costs would be higher.
Worse than that, the only way for Harry to check availability for
any of the contractors, for any week, is to call them and ask – and
unless he decides very quickly, the answers may be out-of-date as
the contractors make other commitments.
• A delay of more than two weeks would also force Harry to re-do the
complex arrangements made with the local municipality in order to
minimize the disruption caused by the digging.
• Any changes to this job would not only affect the project requiring
this job, but also move the dates for which this project requires
resources – internal workforce, contractors, equipment, etc.
– thus unleashing a snowball of re-planning, re-budgeting and recoordination
(with internal and external agencies) across multiple
projects.