by DavidSpratt | Oct 26, 2017 | ICT
Last month I introduced Communities of Practice, a model designed to help align business strategy with the evolving knowledge and experience of its people, while still taking advantage of the efficiencies that can be gained through more formal organisations and processes.
There are three elements that make up a Community of Practice. These are Domain, Community and Practice.
Domain
The common ground that inspires members to join, drives their learning activities and gives purpose and meaning to their activities.
Let’s take a simple example. Yours is a plumbing and gas fitting firm with offices across the country. The building boom has meant that Christchurch, Nelson, Auckland and Tauranga are seeing increased demand for the design and installation of sophisticated gas heating systems and appliances in new, architecturally-designed homes, shopping centres and offices.
In each of these main centres you have a mixture of apprentices, newly-qualified and experienced tradespeople working under a standard organisational structure with supervisors and a branch manager.
The domain in this instance is the design, selection and installation of new gas systems. The reason people join (purpose) is to share ideas and come up with best practice by taking advantage of the work that community members have done, whether in training at apprentice school, at their previous job or on the job last week.
The motivation (meaning) is twofold. To be recognised by your peers and to learn from the experience of others, in an environment where the company rewards these activities.
Community
Creates the social fabric for learning.
Our plumbers and gas fitters are in a mixture of locations and have a wide variety of experience and insights and formal learning. In reality though, they do not have a great deal in common other than their learning domains.
In our imaginary firm, Jim and Rod have a common cause when it comes to the knowledge they are sharing from Jim’s last project. Jim is sharing his ideas and experience from a job where he specified and installed the latest gas appliances from a new European supplier. Rod is about to install the same equipment on his next job and is worried about getting the specification wrong. He has never seen or installed the equipment before and the job has contracted delivery milestones and quality demands.
What I haven’t mentioned is that Jim only just qualified as a gasfitter last year. He finished his apprenticeship with another company in Dunedin and only just joined the Christchurch team in January. Rod, on the other hand, has worked for the Auckland branch as a supervisor for twenty years and is regarded as the top dog in the Auckland office.
Jim wears tight jeans and sports an indie-style beard, while Rod has a beer gut and listens to Led Zeppelin. In normal circumstances, these two vastly different people with seemingly nothing in common would never have come together for the betterment of themselves or their firm. The Community of Practice that the company has established means that knowledge and skills are now becoming a part of the fabric of how things are done at work regardless of location or status.
Practice
The Practice component of a Community of Practice is the point of action around which a community develops, shares and maintains its knowledge.
A Practice is built on establishing, recording and sharing formal methods (explicit knowledge) and practical experience (tacit knowledge). It delivers reusable and constantly evolving best practice while making room for innovation. It allows the firm to continue to constantly improve its standards regardless of changes to the organisational structure or the movement of staff.
Jim’s willingness to share his drawings and installation instructions and, importantly, to take the occasional phone call from Rod has created genuine, measurable customer value on his latest job. These drawings and connections also endure for all community members and the firm. This motivates staff, creates a sense of belonging and maintains competitive advantage for the company as a whole as it evolves in a tough, competitive market. This is the basis of Communities of Practice.
Part Three of this series covers the most important question of all. How do we break down the structural, cultural and political barriers that exist to Communities of Practice while maintaining the day-to-day organisational framework that ensures the business operates in the day to day?
by chris | Sep 26, 2017 | Energy
What is Power Factor and why is it Important?
Power Factor is an electrical term that is the measurement of how efficient energy consuming equipment translate that energy into a useful output. It is measured by the ratio (>0 and <1) between apparent power (kVA) and real power (kW), where apparent power is the amount of energy required to deliver a required output. Power Factor should be as close to 1 as possible (above 0.95) so that apparent power and real power are nearly the same. This means that nearly all the energy consumed is translated into a useful output.
An analogy of this is a boat travelling in a straight line from Beachlands Marina to Waiheke, with no wind and water currents it can easily make the trip without difficulty (real power), however in the real world, environmental factors exist which, if not allowed for, will make the boat travel off course or get to its destination much slower. The boat requires more energy (apparent power) to counteract the wind and ocean currents to arrive safely at its destination in its desired timescale. With stronger wind and currents, more energy is required to make the same trip and perform the same action.
In an ideal world, the boat would only travel on calm sunny days as this would maximize the energy output in travelling to Waiheke Island.
This Overlooked Charge on Your Energy Bill Could be Costing You Dearly
Returning to buildings, manufacturing plants and industrial sites, power factor is caused by inductive energy loads, these are the wind and ocean currents that can potentially mean that we use more energy than is necessary to run our equipment. Inductive loads include:
- Transformers
- Induction motors
- Induction generators (wind mill generators)
- High intensity discharge (HID) lighting
Sites with poor power factor (a low ratio of below 0.95) create disturbance in the local electricity distribution network which can require the network operators to build more infrastructure than is required to deliver power to customers.
Power Factor Charges
We regularly come across customers who are not aware they are being billed for poor power factor, in most cases the energy retailers are not concerned about these charges as they are pass-through network costs. Most North Island and some South Island energy distribution networks charge customers with poor power factor. Pricing is mostly standardised through the country at around $8.90 per reactive kVA unit per month, however penalty times and the way the billable Power Factor is calculated varies between networks.
An example of this is below, covering a customer located in the Vector Network in Auckland.
This is an extreme case, however shows what customers should look out for on their energy bills. If poor power factor is charged, along with a peak kVA demand charge, then customers are paying a higher cost for peak demand as poor power factor inflates this. Like the analogy above, a greater amount of kVA energy is needed to get to Waiheke due to strong winds and ocean currents.
What can be done to correct Power Factor?
Power Factor can be corrected through the installation of capacitor banks, traditionally these consisted of a control unit and a series of capacitors that would filter the power used on site as required. Modern units are evolving quickly as technology advances where sophisticated software can deliver granular correction with less capacitors to ensure that power factor remains above 0.95. Fully active systems delivering electronic real time correction are also becoming more accessible but remain very expensive and only suitable for specific situations. Hybrid systems are also available, but again, these are suited to specific situations.
There are numerous businesses out there offering power factor correction, many companies only offer off the shelf type products. The danger here is that they are not specifically designed to a customers requirements and can be either under sized (i.e. they wont correct all of the power factor issue) or their over sized (i.e. a customer will pay for more than what they need). Standard step sizing of the capacitor banks may be too large which means correction only works at large loading as the unit lacks the granularity to correct smaller loadings.
What if I have a unit already installed?
Depending on the age and design, most units can be repaired or upgraded. However older units may need to be replaced as it would be a case of just throwing good money after bad.
Unfortunately Power Factor Correction Units are not a set and forget product, just like a car they need a regular annual inspection. Having your unit checked on an annual basis is a good way to make sure that they continue to run efficiently and you get 100% value out of an expensive asset. All too often we hear of customers say, “but I installed a unit 3 years ago, why am I still being charged for power factor?”
If the unit was designed correctly in the first instance and the customer has not outgrown it, the most likely issue is heat. Capacitors have a life cycle of around 10 years if kept cool. However if they are regularly exposed to temperatures above 30 degrees they can begin to fail. This is why unit design is important and relates to the location of where the unit is installed. Off the shelf products will not consider this.
Who do I call?
Total Utilities can assist customers in building the business case to install or repair correction equipment, illustrating potential savings and relative return on investment based on measured half hour interval data.
We can design and install Power Factor Correction Units through kAVrCorrect (Formerly Metelect in Rotorua) so that customers receive and full end to end service.
by DavidSpratt | Sep 13, 2017 | ICT
A colleague from one of New Zealand’s emerging winners in the software development market tells me that, despite its success, he is concerned about whether he is utilising the very expensive specialists in his business to best effect.
He bemoaned: “It seems the bigger we get, the more time wastage we create.
“Our best people are already frustrated at the inefficiencies and are headed to the door.
“It’s hard enough finding top people without losing the best of the best to our competitors. We pay well. We have a great environment in our offices and our customers are blue chip – what am I getting wrong?” he said.
Many companies face the same problem. The business grows and people begin to disconnect, both from each other and from the business’ strategic direction. As silos are created by management, knowledge sharing and common approaches to problem-solving are replaced by “standards and procedures”. The business becomes burdened under red tape while its creative excitement seems to be drained of energy with every additional memo.
As entrepreneurs, we all know this story and understand that as businesses grow it becomes necessary to institute a level of structure to address complexity. While bringing order and control the unintended consequence can often be a stifling of the creativity and a growing structural inability to share ideas.
People in all sorts of organisations share their experience, learn new skills and create innovations. In larger, more structured organisations these learnings can often end up remaining in the head of the individual or local team, simply because business rules, targets and individual measures make sharing ideas counterproductive to the individual.
Communities of Practice
Emerging across the business world now are “communities of practice” as a means of ensuring that the skills, experiences and ideas of our staff are constantly shared and refreshed to the benefit of the participants and, vitally, for the business
An early exponent of Communities of Practice, US-based educational theorist and practitioner Etienne Wenger, has spoken about the challenge of restructuring organisations to improve performance while avoiding the destruction of innovative capital. In essence, he believed, communities could exist within an organisation and people continue to share and create new ideas regardless of the department or team they worked in. Knowledge and strategy, it seemed, could coexist without adding further inefficiency.
So how do we establish and run these communities? With tools like mobile phones, Skype and intranets it isn’t all that difficult. All you need are willing people, a common purpose and a point of focus.
These are three main components to be considered in establishing communities of practice:
- Domain
The common ground that inspires members to join a community of practice drives their learning activities and gives purpose and meaning to their activities.
- Community
A community creates the social fabric for learning. It brings together experts and learners while encouraging meaningful interactions – a willingness to share what is in their heads, for common goals and shared growth.
- Practice
The community needs a point of action, or practice, around which it develops, shares and maintains its knowledge.
By implementing Communities of Practice in the work environment, you can make a difference in how key teams operate… That helps increase efficiency and stops that talent walking out the door.
Next month, I will examine domains and communities in more detail.
by DavidSpratt | Jul 24, 2017 | Energy
The boundaries between physical, digital and biological worlds are breaking down — giving way to a new world of computer based business known as cyber-physical systems. These cyber-physical systems are characterized by the merging of physical, digital, and biological realms in profound ways. Artificial intelligence (AI) serves as the primary catalyst of this transformation.
Klaus Schwab, Chairman and Founder of the World Economic Forum wrote:
We are at the beginning of a revolution that is fundamentally changing the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope and complexity … the fourth industrial revolution is unlike anything humankind has experienced before.
We have all heard this kind of hyperbole before. So why should this matter and what are local companies doing to address the issues?
Beyond hyperbole
It matters because we have already seen our lives changed by these tools in the most dramatic fashion. The last presidential election in the USA was directed affected by the use of AI.
These tools were used in identifying and directly addressing those electors who were undecided or felt strongly about key issues. These powerful compute engines, combined with good old-fashioned phone calls and door knocks, meant voters were either encouraged to vote by “people like them” who knocked on the door (e.g. young mum talking to young mum) or to not vote through messages directed directly to them about the futility of “rigged” elections.
Leveraging AI in the New Zealand Business Context
Politics and business are uneasy bedfellows so I will get back to the brief. How do Kiwi companies respond to international and local competitors who already understand and are leveraging artificial intelligence and bringing it to our competitive landscape?
Let’s start with energy. It is one of the most fundamental parts of any business. Most of us just focus on getting a cheap price for electricity or gas and then move on to running the enterprise day to day.
This approach just won’t work when machines are making the micro-decisions that can mean success and failure.
International Competition
Consider some of our major New Zealand computer companies. They are in a life or death struggle with public cloud providers like Microsoft, Amazon and Google. These gigantic multinationals have access to all the tools mentioned above and even deliver them “as a service” to companies everywhere. Competing with organisations like this is not just a question of having good people or getting the best price for inputs. It is about innovation and very, very careful monitoring of all the inputs and outputs, including energy.
One of the most brutally competitive battlegrounds is over the provision of data centre services to the business market. In the past ten years companies like Datacom and Spark have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in state of the art datacentres. These datacentres require huge amounts of energy to keep them running.
New Zealand’s advantage
New Zealand has a natural advantage because over 80% of our energy is created via renewable means. In the years ahead this advantage will become a cost and strategic advantage.
As the forth industrial revolution unfolds New Zealand’s energy advantage that will drive our strategic advantage in data centres. Don’t believe me? Microsoft recently announced that a key new measure for its Azure data centres was energy inputs to data outputs. Thus Microsoft has directly linked energy usage as a means to define its compute power efficiency in terms of services delivered.
So what are our Kiwi companies doing to compete on this stage? Both Datacom and Spark use tools like artificial intelligence to monitor, control and measure their energy inputs. Historically it was simply a case of installing a few sub meters and a cost calculator (macro energy measurements). Today these companies aim to measure and monitor right down to the lightbulb (micro monitoring). The rise of the internet of things has made this ability to micro monitor even greater. As new data centres and factories are being built across the country, architects are being required to include in their plans, tools and products that embed internet of things, artificial intelligence and micro monitoring in the very fabric of the design.
Companies building factories in this country that do not think of micro monitoring of energy use as a strategic tool should be reminded that in the last few decades we exported more manufacturing jobs overseas than we created in all of IT. Ignorance of the strategic possibilities of micro energy monitoring is wilful blindness in a world where the Fourth Industrial Revolution is not only upon us, it is rapidly transforming the competitive landscape we work in.
by pushkar | Jul 22, 2017 | Energy
Investment in energy monitoring has traditionally been dominated by lengthy CAPEX discussions and the technical specifications of proposed monitoring infrastructure which means spending more cash to find out where cost savings might be made. Little thought was ever given to the data output and associated software –most competing products delivered similar back end services and data displays which required users to export data to CSV format before being able to really interrogate it.
That’s changing with Panoramic Power smart sensors available now in New Zealand, through Total Utilities.
My colleague David, has previously written a series of articles regarding the rise of artificial intelligence algorithms and how major corporations are using these to exploit customer data and drive behavior. Data obtained from raw internet traffic, page clicks, key search words and online transactions is now being structured by algorithms in order to deliver insights and show trends. Further to this, the data is normalised by user defined groups and then compared.
Smart recommendations for energy flows
If Amazon or Apple can recommend a book or record that I might like, why can’t my energy monitoring software make recommendations? And if the data is all I really need, why should I have to purchase a very expensive metering asset that may only be required for 12 months? Of if my usage pattern changes why can’t I quickly adjust my monitoring setup?
Total Utilities encounter clients every day who operate energy intensive equipment, while the type of equipment varies greatly from production and manufacturing applications, cold storage, and commercial buildings, the issues remain the same. Clients need real time visibility of where energy is being used so that they can make strategic decisions and act quickly to save money.
Further to this, they need to know when energy intensive systems are under stress and may require attention outside of their normal maintenance cycle. They want the ability to see their energy flow within their site in various graphical formats and to be able to benchmark their HVAC or compressors across multiple facilities.
Total Utilities use Panoramic Power’s IoT (Internet of Things) sensor technology and cloud based analytics to help customers understand energy consumption.
Fast to install, fast to get benefits
Worldwide there are eight billion data points per month across 800 sites in 30 countries. With more being added in New Zealand every week.
Forty smart meters were installed in 1.5hrs at an Auckland CBD site the week before last and fifty were installed in 2hrs at a site in West Auckland on Friday. Each sensor is clamped onto the outgoing electrical wires of a customer’s distribution board. This eliminates expensive wiring, investment in new panels, lengthy shutdowns, IT connections and reduces health and safety risks. Once installed, it monitors the flow of electricity, sending information wirelessly to the cloud-based analytics platform every ten seconds.
With such an ease of install combined with effective data presentation and representation, potential energy savings can be identified quickly by pinpointing specific areas for further investigation. It took less than two days for Total Utilities to identify that the lighting of a commercial building was switching on at 2am and running for two hours every morning despite the BMS (Building Management System) showing all lights were off. Simple measures were implemented quickly which means the energy monitoring system has already paid for itself.
While the above is a relatively rudimentary and common example, Total Utilities can just as easily correlate key variables such as chiller temperature against outdoor temperature on a monthly, daily and hourly basis across multiple sites located throughout NZ without the need for pain staking manual calculations. We then deliver clients meaningful information and advice quickly so they can act and make significant energy savings.
Total Utilities believes that traditional energy meters are merely becoming a means to an ends as clients engage us for the value we create with intelligent data and analytics.
by chris | Jul 11, 2017 | Energy
The calls for a 100% renewable energy market in NZ are often met with large amounts of criticism, “We are 85% renewable already”, “Thermal back up is required for periods of drought and low wind”, “Going 100% renewable will only increase prices as more generation will be required” etc etc etc.
Quite frankly, this is an outdated way to think of the market based on large scale generation models and long distance transmission.
New Zealand in transition
Unlike most other countries, NZ is well positioned to further reduce reliance on thermal generation, given our geography, population spread and isolated energy system i.e. we are not importing or exporting electricity to other countries like many do in Europe or North America.
A good first step could be to remove thermal baseload generation from the market, in recent time this has been achieved with Otathuhu closing in 2015, much of the “slack” was taken up by new and efficient running of Geothermal stations.
But how do we take this further, how do we remove the requirement for Huntly et al while still retaining large users such as NZ Steel and Rio Tinto?
Battery Storage and the New Zealand network
From my perspective the largest potential lies in battery storage whether it be fixed assets or leveraging the electric transport fleet in years to come.
If generators / network companies considered either installing large scale industrial batteries at remotely located or congested sub-stations or operating networks of small scale batteries installed across thousands of residential homes, massive amounts of money would be saved by not having to build new hydro dams or geothermal plants.
Ever increasing costs of maintaining such a large transmission and distribution system for such a small population is surely a compelling event for infrastructure owners to invest in new technologies and new business models to sustain revenue into the future. If we apply Moore’s law to batteries, they will half in price and double in capacity in the next 18 months which should see them become extremely viable.
Considering the above, the case for thermal becomes much less compelling.
Examples from abroad
In recent times, Germany has made huge steps to curtail the reliance on thermal generation with numerous renewable generation initiatives. The following article was written by Yaniv Vardi, CEO of Panoramic Power and highlights a number of valuable points that New Zealand might take on board.
In a world facing pressing challenges from climate change and rising carbon emissions, entire countries are becoming laboratories to test potential solutions. Nowhere is this truer than in Germany, where their aggressive plans to address climate change, encoded in the ambitious Energiewende, call to phase out nuclear and carbon-based energy sources and invest in renewable energy sources – such as solar and wind.
The Energiewende plan envisions a non-nuclear Germany that cuts its carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. As lofty a goal as this may be, the plan is on pace to meet and even exceed benchmarks. Even though not everyone is on board, and some claim the Energiewende is overzealous and could strangle business in favor of pushing an unrealistic energy policy, progress well underway.
What is the Energiewende, and what has it done so far?
The Energiewende is a sweeping plan for “the full-scale transformation of [German] society and the economy” along the lines of renewable energy. Passed in 2010 in its most recent form – but with social and political roots that stretch back 20 years prior – the Energiewende schedules a complete phase-out of nuclear-generated energy by 2022, an 80% cut in carbon emissions by 2050 and supports additional investment in renewable technologies such as wind and solar.
The Energiewende has three main components: proliferation of renewable energies, reduction or compete phase out of nuclear- and carbon-based energy sources and increased energy efficiency. Germany is well on its way to completing these goals successfully and in a timely fashion. Currently, the first two components are well underway, while early progress has been made toward heightened efficiency. By 2014, 27% of German electricity was generated by renewable sources. Since 2011, Germany has halved its consumption of nuclear energy and shut down nine of its 17 nuclear reactors.
On its surface, the Energiewende appears to be working. It doesn’t mean, however, that the policy isn’t free of critics. Some have vocalized sharp critique, casting doubt on the viability of the energy plan. But do these arguments hold water?
The continuing energy debate
Not everyone is sold on the promises of the Energiewende. Some, like economist Heiner Flassbeck, argue that an energy system primarily supported by wind and solar, without any aid from nuclear sources or fossil fuels, is ultimately not tenable.
Flassbeck’s critique is related to what critics call “the intermittency problem,” that wind and solar don’t always generate electricity at reliable levels. If the renewable sources fail to produce enough energy to meet the nation’s demand, and Germany successfully phases out all nuclear- and carbon-based energy sources, there would be no fallback to generate the additional energy needed. Critics say removing that backup would be a crucial mistake.
However, proponents argue that intermittency can be solved with greater grid connectivity – geographical diversity, they suggest, should often balance out any shortages – and the development of better storage technologies. At present, wind energy must be used as it is generated; if cost-effective storage methods emerge, the intermittency of wind power becomes less of a concern.
In addition, alternative sources have proven themselves to be sufficient. Just last year, German solar power providers generated so much electricity that they actually had to pay to offload it. And while naysayers may declare this the product of a ham-fisted public policy that actually dims the long-term viability of commercial energy production, the fact that there’s enough clean energy production to bring this hypothetical conflict to life, is itself encouraging.
Energiewende critics also raise concern about inflated electricity costs. In Germany, utilities are required by law to pay energy producers that sell back to the grid. Those payments are set at fixed, above-market prices, which utilities pass on to consumers in the form of a surcharge on their electric bill. As a result, German consumers experience higher than average energy costs. In 2016, the surcharge amounted to 22.1%.
In the U.S., consumers pay less per kilowatt hour, a fact favored by critics of Germany’s energy policy. Despite the heightened electricity rates, German consumers are still widely in favor of the Energiewende. More than 80% of respondents of public opinion polls said they were in favor of a low-carbon and nuclear-free economy. Higher energy costs, it seems, do not deter the Germans in their bid for a cleaner energy system.
Toward a viable, national energy management model
Despite critics’ appeals to hold tight – at least for the time being – to the nuclear- and carbon-based status quo, Germany’s energy efficiency policy is making a compelling case study for a more sustainable model.
The methods may be bold, but they seem to be working. Germany reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 27% and produced 27.4% of its electricity from renewable sources. Renewable energy made up 13.5% of the market as well – all while shuttering nuclear facilities and growing the overall economy by 1.9% (the fastest rate in the G7).
While Germany is phasing out non-renewable energy sources like coal at a slower pace than nuclear energy, the Energiewende is setting the stage for a new system founded on renewable energy technologies. As storage methods improve and proliferate, and distribution networks become more connected, the problem of intermittency should become less and less burdensome – in other words, high-producing regions will be able to support low-producing regions.
While the Energiewende is aggressive bordering on single-minded, it has already demonstrated its viability as an energy system capable of supporting an advanced, forward-thinking economy. Even as the German policy has implemented drastic changes in a relatively short amount of time, the German economy has continued to grow unabated. If the world is serious about combating climate change and meeting the targets of the Paris climate accord, Germany’s Energiewende is a model to emulate, not dismantle.
Yaniv Vardi is the CEO of Panoramic Power, a leader in device level energy monitoring and performance optimization
