Iberwind reinforces its investment in asset management with a new mobility solution
Iberwind, one of the largest energy sector companies in Portugal, promotes, develops and operates renewable energy projects, allowing for the production of clean and renewable energy.
With a know-how that allows it to maximise the use of the national wind resources, Iberwind has been responsible, since 1998 until today, for the installation of 31 wind farms, totalling more than 300 wind turbines, with an installed capacity of about 730 MW, representing approximately 15% of the wind energy produced annually in Portugal and about 3% of the electricity consumed in the country, equivalent to the energy consumption of more than 600 thousand households.
In its mission of constantly seeking to optimise the wind farm control, Iberwind tested the market in 2016 to implement an Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) system that would be flexible and that, in addition to Asset Management, would encompass other processes that are crucial for the organisation. Those processes included Human Resource Management, such as Clock In and Expense Registration, Document Management, Purchase/Procurement Management, with support from Requisition, Quotations to Suppliers, Orders until registration, Invoice validation and approval, and that would also allow for integration with the existing ERP system. On the whole, Iberwind was looking for a system that would enable an end-to-end Maintenance Management in full sync with its service providers that operate on more than 90% of the equipment.
IBM Maximo Asset Management was the solution chosen as it met all these requirements and offered a great capacity to adapt to the organisation, making it possible to easily design customised solutions without need to resort to new developments.
According to Rui Maia, Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Iberwind, ‘Maximo Asset Management’s potential combined with Softinsa’s know-how as a reference partner in the implementation of Asset Management solutions, were decisive for Iberwind’s choice. An investment that proved to be right and which has been keeping pace with the growth and expansion of the business over the past few years’.
Regarding Iberwind’s main gains, Rui Maia points out that ‘the investment in this technological platform has been providing a set of benefits related to the operational efficiency gain, allowing for a full management of the daily tasks of the employees who work in the different departments, and the monitoring and supervision of tasks performed by different service providers in Iberwind’s assets.
‘The implementation of this global platform made it possible to apply more efficient procedures in asset life cycle management and in the creation of performance indicators. We now have workflows and dashboards available that were designed for the various processes that dynamically provide the information needed for decision making, providing greater availability to focus on tasks that bring added value to the organisation’.
Softinsa is also developing an iOS Service Request and Work Orders mobility solution, scheduled to go into production this April, which will be a key tool for Iberwind’s activity taking into account the geographic dispersion of the more than 300 turbines it manages on a daily basis. Also being equated is the implementation of the Stock Management and Item Reception from Suppliers iOS Mobile projects. These solutions will allow Iberwind to easily interact with its service providers and to view real-time information on the work carried out by maintenance professionals, thus enabling access to a technical database that will always be up-to-date and a strong support to decision making.
