TransAlta Utilities

This Alberta, Canada-based owner-operator of some of the most efficient fossil electric power plants and wind farms in the Americas, already a leader in many aspects of its business, asked for help in staying ahead. Designed and managed implementation of over a dozen processes to assist the company in making the transition from regulated to unregulated competition. Helped the company reposition itself, creating core capabilities for maintenance, financial management, and opening markets. Collaborated with top management to move the company from being a bureaucratic utility into a responsive company that could make offers in a global market. Overcame many simultaneous challenges as the company became more efficient, more effective with customers, regulators, and environmental communities. Helped the company transform its capacity for building large power plants into a capacity for building small, mobile power plants, and took them from work in just one community to being able to work simultaneously in many. One of the best known of these projects dramatically reduced the cost and cycle time for scheduled power plant maintenance (“turnarounds”), saving the company tens of millions of dollars every year. Utility companies from around the world sent teams to observe the company’s famous daily “turnaround meetings.”