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The Brains and the Brawn Order Now: The Definitive Report on Power Plant Knowledge Management (click to get more information) Managing a power plant asset over its multi-decade lifetime—a continuum that begins with project conception and ends with the dismantling and decommissioning of the facility—requires a comprehensive, integrated, and flexible knowledge management (KM) strategy with two principal elements: The digital element--asset intelligence (DAI) embodied by myriad automation and software performance solutions The human element (HE), the people who are assigned responsibility, wholly or in part, for the power plant asset, the processes through which they work, and the cultural aspects of the organization. In this report, we advance a vision based upon the analogy that the KM system is the plant’s “brain,” constantly assimilating information, and requires a design and development strategy distinct from, but closely aligned with, the physical assets, or the “brawn.” We also demonstrate that executing such a vision, though conducted in stages, provides a distinct competitive advantage unmatched in terms of early payback on investment. Why? Because it has become so difficult to expand electricity infrastructure—for example, to obtain permits to build new power plants and transmission lines or to justify capital costs for new plant assets which have more than doubled in five years. Every kilowatt-hour that comes from an existing asset grows more valuable by the day. In addition, the imposition of climate change policy onto power generators means that the primary emission from a plant, carbon dioxide, has a financial value, determined either through a tax, cap and trade, or other policy mechanism. This fundamentally changes not only the financial management of the plant but also leads to a rethinking about the Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) systems for the asset. Fundamentally, superior KM allows the asset owner to extract more value and productivity— that is, more revenue under a declining cost curve—from the asset in the face of new, more complex constraints, such as carbon management, a changing workforce, reliability standards imposed by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), European Union, International Union of Producers and Distributors of Electricity (Unipede, now called EurElectric), various Asia-Pacific partnerships, and others. The successful KM strategy is equal parts “digital asset intelligence” and “human elements.” The latter work together to define an organization’s culture. One aspect cannot be divorced from the other.
Click for more information on the Brains and Brawn Power Plant Knowledge Management Report.

The Brains and the Brawn
Order Now: The Definitive Report on Power Plant Knowledge Management
(click to get more information)

Managing a power plant asset over its multi-decade lifetime—a continuum that begins with project conception and ends with the dismantling and decommissioning of the facility—requires a comprehensive, integrated, and flexible knowledge management (KM) strategy with two principal elements:

The digital element--asset intelligence (DAI) embodied by myriad automation and software performance solutions
The human element (HE), the people who are assigned responsibility, wholly or in part, for the power plant asset, the processes through which they work, and the cultural aspects of the organization.

In this report, we advance a vision based upon the analogy that the KM system is the plant’s “brain,” constantly assimilating information, and requires a design and development strategy distinct from, but closely aligned with, the physical assets, or the “brawn.” We also demonstrate that executing such a vision, though conducted in stages, provides a distinct competitive advantage unmatched in terms of early payback on investment. Why? Because it has become so difficult to expand electricity infrastructure—for example, to obtain permits to build new power plants and transmission lines or to justify capital costs for new plant assets which have more than doubled in five years.

Every kilowatt-hour that comes from an existing asset grows more valuable by the day. In addition, the imposition of climate change policy onto power generators means that the primary emission from a plant, carbon dioxide, has a financial value, determined either through a tax, cap and trade, or other policy mechanism. This fundamentally changes not only the financial management of the plant but also leads to a rethinking about the Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) systems for the asset.

Fundamentally, superior KM allows the asset owner to extract more value and productivity— that is, more revenue under a declining cost curve—from the asset in the face of new, more complex constraints, such as carbon management, a changing workforce, reliability standards imposed by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), European Union, International Union of Producers and Distributors of Electricity (Unipede, now called EurElectric), various Asia-Pacific partnerships, and others. The successful KM strategy is equal parts “digital asset intelligence” and “human elements.” The latter work together to define an organization’s culture. One aspect cannot be divorced from the other.