Northern Gas Networks operates the gas distribution network across the North East of England, Northern Cumbria and much of Yorkshire. NGN delivers gas to 2.7 million homes and businesses across this geographical area, through a network of 37,000 km of gas pipelines.
Background
NGN was heavily reliant on spreadsheets when it came to management of its workforce, fleet and assets. This involved significant administrative resource, and scope for human error. Operatives working in the field required hefty paper job packs, containing key project information such as utility drawings and codes of practice to enable them to work safely. Forms to capture information from field operations – such as critical safe digs, risk assessments and service cards, were still paper based.
NGN was already underway with a major, strategic review and upgrade of its technological landscape. The nature of NGN’s business by definition carries great risk, and NGN had concerns about being able to monitor assurance and compliance across its wide area of operation. NGN needed a safety and compliance solution that could be implemented quickly and without fuss, and without impacting on, or drawing resource away from, the many other key information technology projects that it was working on.
Ctrl Hub Intervention
We demonstrated Ctrl Hub to various key individuals within NGN, to show how it could streamline a number of processes and reduce NGN’s exposure to risk. We carried out workshops to review existing business and operation processes of NGN, to model and automate them within Ctrl Hub. Ctrl Hub built a virtual, cloud based environment for NGN. We constructed electronic forms, with bespoke workflows behind them, to capture critical data in the field that had previously been collected on paper.
Over an eight week period, Ctrl Hub was rolled out across NGN’s entire direct service provider network, and NGN’s own internal teams. The training was delivered by Ctrl Hub staff working in conjunction with NGN training teams.
Ctrl Hub’s initial implementation provided a workforce, fleet, asset and project management system that enabled NGN to have full visibility and assurance across its entire sub-contractor supply chain. Qualifications, certifications and competence are managed from a single, cloud based database. This shows, in real time, the compliance status of each individual operative, vehicle and item of equipment deployed on NGN’s mains replacement programme. It gives NGN the fundamental assurance that people and assets involved in maintaining critical national infrastructure work are capable and qualified. Meta data captured in the field can be viewed in real time, and fed into a range of management and regulatory reports.
Savings
In the workshops mentioned above, we also quantified the cost of existing NGN processes against the operation of Ctrl Hub. This did not include non-quantifiable savings such as legal and compliance risk reduction. It represents a huge return on investment.
The cost of the Ctrl Hub platform was 6% of the quantifiable savings that were generated – mainly back office admin time.
Conclusion
Warren Iveson is NGN’s Totex Business Performance & Assurance Manager, and has worked closely with Ctrl Hub since the beginning of our deployment with NGN.
“NGN was a trailblazer in terms of digitising safety and compliance across our direct and subcontract workforce. At the beginning of our contract we mapped out the savings that Ctrl Hub could generate against the then prevailing manual heavy way of working. Without going into detail, the level of savings was extremely high. This was coupled with the assurance of having a central, accessible platform, pursuant to which we could ensure management of health and safety compliance across our entire network. Ctrl Hub gives a very agile interface between the fast moving, dynamic world of field operations, and our critical back office ERP platform. The electronic forms and processes which we developed with Ctrl Hub allow us to capture and process key information from field operations. That information is critical in enabling us to comply with our ongoing regulatory obligations. If changes to forms or processes are required, to reflect updated legislation or policy directives for example, we can update these in Ctrl Hub within the day, without any impact or costly changes required in other systems. Ctrl Hub has always been responsive to our needs.”
Strong Relationships
Our continuing operation with NGN is testament to the relationship we have built, and the value we have delivered. We have worked with NGN on a number of further projects, and have enhanced their platform significantly since initial deployment.
