March 2011 Newsletter - Detail

Picking up the pieces after the Christchurch earthquake

The beautiful town of Christchurch on New Zealand’s south island was severely damaged by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake last month. The earthquake was considered to be an aftershock from last September's even larger magnitude 7.1 quake, which resulted in extensive building and infrastructure damage but few injuries and no deaths.

The latest quake was centred within 10km of the city of Christchurch and at a shallow depth of 5km during the middle of a working day, resulted in destruction, injuries and deaths. The final death toll is expected to reach about 200. 

Along with the tragic deaths and injuries, Christchurch has suffered extensive damage to buildings, streets and virtually all services infrastructure. Power, water and sewage systems were disrupted, and some areas are still without one or more of these services. Approximately 70,000 people (out of a population of 300,000) have left the city, and at least 10,000 homes will have to be demolished.
 

The cost in terms of disruption and destruction is estimated at NZ$15 B.

Along with everyone else in the country, the Caravel Group focused on what we could do to help. However, the immediate requirement was for search and rescue teams and emergency services personnel. As the scale of the disaster has become apparent, attention has remained on these resources, and the restoration of basic services. 

Caravel has been involved in the latter, being asked to assist Chorus, the infrastructure arm of Telecom New Zealand by providing planning, program management and operational support to their Property and Network Assets Division in order to restore services and re-occupy their Christchurch premises.

Previously Caravel had led the procurement and contract management process to outsource the maintenance of Chorus' 16,000 network and building elements. This provided Caravel with a detailed knowledge of the assets involved, as well as the responsibilities and obligations of the contractors. 

In order to assist Chorus, Caravel staff involved in this work have effectively been granted "leave of absence" from their current Program Management roles with another network provider, showing the inclusive response from all businesses in this time of great need.

State of the art Zone Substation, Transmission & Distribution Network

Senior Caravel personnel are working closely with NSW’s largest energy distributor to help deliver the next generation of substations.  Caravel is working with its client to specify the requirements for a state of the art Zone Substation and to develop the program of work to deliver the next generation of substations.

The program is complementary to the work being undertaken on the Federal Government’s Smart Grid, Smart City demonstration project. 

The Federal Government has committed up to $100 million to develop the Smart Grid, Smart City demonstration project in partnership with the energy sector. This initiative will gather robust information about the costs and benefits of smart grids to inform future decisions by government, electricity providers, technology suppliers and consumers across Australia.

 A smart grid works by combining advanced communication, sensing and metering infrastructure with the existing electricity network. Smart grids have enormous potential to improve the efficiency of our electricity sector and transform the way we use energy in our homes and businesses.
 

A smart grid can improve the reliability of electricity services for consumers by identifying and resolving faults on the electricity grid, better managing voltage and identifying infrastructure that requires maintenance. Smart grids can also help consumers manage their individual electricity consumption and enable the use of energy efficient 'smart appliances' that can be programmed to run on off-peak power.

Smart Grid, Smart City project overview source: Department of Resources, Energy & Tourism web site.

New GM for the West

Caravel has appointed one of its Directors, Jim McMahon as General Manager - WA Operations. A West Australian himself, Jim has been based in Auckland for the last 5 years driving Caravel's business development in the shaky isles.

Jim has more than 20 years experience in senior and executive roles in the telecommunications sector where his programme management skills are in great demand. With an entrepreneurial mind-set and a penchant for business development, his achievements include a telecommunication start-up and the development and marketing of innovative terminal equipment products to Telstra and other telecommunication service providers throughout Australasia. Among his responsibilities were the development and implementation of new processes for fixed and mobile digital networks.

 He has previously held senior management roles with Sales Technologies, Open Networks, New T&T Hong Kong and Telecom NZ.
 

Jim holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical) and a Master of Business Administration.

Caravel completes governance project for large mining company

Caravel has just completed an important Governance project in Western Australia for one of the major mining companies.  Caravel has worked with the client to develop a delivery structure for planning, scheduling and decision support tools within a major area of the company.  The deliverables included sufficient documentation to enable the client to institutionalise the Governance model using its own in-house change management processes.  The tasks undertaken included:

• Assessing the planning, scheduling and technology landscape for the client delivery area;

• Developing governance models and options;

• Developing roles and responsibilities within the proposed governance structure; and

• Seeking agreement to the delivery structure.
  

 As an integral element of the delivery, Caravel performed a significant amount of stakeholder Engagement planning including:

• Developing an agreement on the engagement and collaboration model with key stakeholders to obtain their buy-in;

• Validating and syndicating the engagement model with key stakeholders;

• Liaising closely with the office of the Chief Information Officer to ensure alignment of business requirements and technical application strategy.
  

The result of the work was an agreed Governance structure, stakeholder engagement plan, information and training material and a phased implementation plan for the client to implement.

Selecting and Engaging Project Management Professional Services Companies – Does Size Matter?

The profession of Project Management has now become well established as being a core corporate competency with the result that organisations use a mix of in-house and external project resources to meet their needs. Typically, when tendering for external resources, respondents are asked to reply to a long list of demanding requirements specified in the Tender. One of those requirements is inevitably company size. But do those purchasing project management services ask the right questions of the profession and do they then get the evaluation criteria correct?

Caravel has written a white paper examining some of the aspects involved in specifying and selecting project management firms. The paper assumes a running knowledge by the reader of the profession and the skills, experience and knowledge bases required of the project management professional.

If you would like to receive a copy of this white paper, just register your details at  http://www.caravelgroup.com.au/Caravel/white-paper01-registration.asp and we’ll send you a copy.