Petrochem/Utilities Industry Trends

A Story of Database Consolidation: Q&A with George Daniell

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Making the Most of Strategic Sourcing With the Right Information Building a Better MRO Database A Story of Database Consolidation: Q&A with George Daniell Related Standards and Publications

George Daniell is a technical lead in charge of the maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) inventory database for Florida Power & Light (FPL), one of the largest and fastest growing electric utilities in the United States. In 1999, FPL hired IHS Intermat Solutions to help it create a consolidated MRO database.

Q: Why did you need IHS Intermat’s help?

We had five different catalogs—hence, five different ways of naming items. For example, we were calling hard hats shock protectors in some places, and using the terms lights and lamps for the same items.

Q: How did you come to have so many different catalogs?

We have different business units—a nuclear power generation group, a fossil fuel power generation group, transmission, and distribution groups—and in each, we had different catalogs with different names for parts. There are a number of common items used across all the business units, but each one had a different name for it and different stock numbers. Consequently, we weren’t leveraging our buying power. Another problem occurred when someone in one of the groups was looking for an item. If he couldn’t find it in his unit, he would go out and buy it, even if we had more than he needed in another plant. We didn’t have a tool for searching across business units.

Q: Why did you decide to consolidate your MRO catalogs?

We started up another unit, FPLE, which was dedicated to providing power outside of Florida. As they were coming on board, we were trying to standardize their assets plus create a centralized procurement department. It became very important for us to consolidate our catalogs. Also, because we have different platforms in the different business units, the idea of having something up front that could be used by everybody was very attractive.

Q: How long did it take you to consolidate the information?

It took us a year to get the catalog ready for production. When you’re dealing with a lot of items, there are a lot of things to look at. IHS Intermat helped us clean up the information, but they couldn’t make the business decisions about which part number to use, for example. And for some of the areas, such as our nuclear business unit, our engineers had to have final say on what parts to keep in the system.

The amount of effort it takes to clean up a catalog is huge. I think it’s something everybody underestimates. They think it’s a three-month effort, but it can take you three months just to figure out what to clean.

Q: What else had to happen to create the consolidated database?

While IHS Intermat cleaned up the parts information, we worked on the standard business processes for each business unit. Who creates the part? Who approves the part? Who says that’s the right description? Are we going to standardize on “inches” or “in?” All those conversations need to take place in order to get group consensus. It takes time. Some of the business units absolutely wanted “inches” and some wanted “in,” so you have to come up with synonyms and translations so now you can look at both sides of it. Another example of this is the abbreviation for stainless steel. We were able to standardize on “SS,” but before we got into this, we didn’t have a standard abbreviation. Some people called it “stainless.” And if you went to look for a part, you might have two of the same part—one described as “SS” and the other as “stainless.”

Q: What was the next step after creating the business rules?

We had to put people through training. Once you have the catalog cleaned, the next thing you want to do is put the processes in place to keep it from getting contaminated again. It’s not a technology hurdle, it’s a business process hurdle. For example, you can go from 100 people creating items to a selected group of catalog specialists to create items. Now we know information is being entered in a specific format and is being supervised and controlled.

Q: What were some of the other benefits you received from this project?

When we sent the catalog out to IHS Intermat, in just the preliminary investigation, we found that we didn’t have to clean all the parts. Some of those were obsolete, so rather than send them out to be cleaned, we decided not to include them in the new catalog. Right off the bat, you can see some savings. The most significant thing, though, was once we had all the items named the same way, we were able to leverage the buy. A good example is items such as safety gloves, safety glasses, and safety helmets. We were able to have one procurement agent buy them for all business units, versus having individual people buying them. It makes sense—if you buy 10 pairs of gloves, it’s going to be one price. If you buy 1,000 pairs of gloves, it’s going to be a totally different price.