News & Research: Client Successes

Case Study: Improving Capital Planning and Management for Electric Utility

ScottMadden worked with a large southeastern electric utility to recommend business process improvements for the company's capital spending allocation, tracking, and analysis.

• The electric utility industry allocates significant dollars for capital spending, but is not known for effective capital stewardship
• Despite being known for operational excellence, the company's capital spending history suggested there was room for improvement
• A strategic initiative was established by the leaders of delivery, supply, and the service company to identify potential business process improvements in capital planning and management, then adopt those practices that will enable the company to improve
  

• Collected best practices from five companies in capital-intensive industries
• Conducted interviews with subject matter experts within delivery, supply, and service companies to identify existing processes, practices, and tools used
• Developed gap analysis to identify potential areas for improvement
• Constructed a set of eight business process improvement recommendations and high-level implementation schedule
  

• Created a centralized capital planning group to oversee assessment of capital spending allocation
  
• Implemented standardized practices and tools for assessing capital projects prior to approval and after execution/implementation
• Developed long-term asset plans to link capital planning to the company's financial planning