Delivering for the Water Corporation of Western Australia

Overview
This utilities company had already achieved very high standards of service. We have sustained their standards while lowering costs and surpassing all expectations for maintenance and safety performance.

Scope

• Mechanical
• Electrical
• Instrumentation

Background
The Water Corporation of Western Australia, supplies water to more than three hundred towns, operates eighty-nine wastewater treatment plants, and also provides irrigation and drainage services.

Challenges

• The Corporation wanted the right contractor and the right kind of contract, to avoid the costs of rebidding
• The new contract meant a transfer from public to private sector
• Independent audits had shown that quality of service was already high, so maintaining that level of quality while bringing down costs and being cost-effective to work with, was the challenge. We rose to that challenge, and together, we have found a solution based on honesty, trust, cooperation, respect, and open sharing of information

PSN's approach

• By bringing oil and gas industry ideas on safety we have achieved unprecedented successes
• The alliance management approach shares risks and rewards, mutually agrees on goals and on the level of profit in the management fee, and carries out open book accounting
• To reduce costs we had the choice of either servicing more assets and bringing in more business for the Corporation, or losing people. We didn’t think losing people was conducive to quality, so we chose to do more. Our decision has achieved a 300% revenue growth, and a 40% people growth over ten years
• Quality and cost are closely tied to morale, so we have reduced sick leave and staff turnover both of which indicate a happier, more dedicated workforce
• Having reached zero on the lead/lag graph for lost time injuries and medical treatment injuries, we have now included first-aid injuries to the lag indicator, and included investigations into all near miss incidents, to the lead indicator – another stretch target to work toward

Achievements

• We have achieved world class best practice for maintenance management in water utilities, with an audit score only one point short of the auditor’s highest ever score, as benchmarked by MCP AIMS
• We consistently achieve 100% scores on all key performance indicators
• Safety certification by DNV to ISO 4801
• Quality certification by DNV to ISO 9002 – 1994, upgraded to new ISO 9001 – 2000 standard
• Environmental certification by DNV to ISO 14001
• Platinum certificates in safety from Worksafe, the Government of Western Australia’s agency for work safety and health laws
• Safety certification to AS/NZS ISO 4801:2001 which is the latest Occupational Health & Safety (OHS) Management Standard.  Certification to meet its requirements represents the highest publicly recognised level of OHS achievement in the Australia/New Zealand region
• Our contract has been extended three times