Abstract
The South African power generation industry is faced with unreliable power production efficiencies which limits the availability of constant electrical energy to the South African grid. One of the main contributors to unreliable supply is planned turbine maintenance outages which take longer than scheduled due to project management delays as one of the factors. This research study is structured to determine and mitigate project management delays during turbine maintenance outages. Such mitigations would benefit the organisation in improving plant availability and increase the electricity availability to the consumers – through load shedding reduction. This research addresses two questions; what are the technical and project management factors that contribute to planned turbine maintenance outage delays and what are the strategies to reduce project management delay factors to turbine maintenance outages. Structured interviews were conducted with nine (9) participants using a standardized openended questionnaire to answer the research questions. The participants had in-depth knowledge and experience in executing and leading turbine maintenance outages. Research analysis provided an array of project management delays such as: unavailability of spares, poor project planning, lack of execution skills, late mobilization, poor leadership, lack of processes and procedures, poor project management, lack of quality control, management corruption and lack of training and coaching. Mitigation strategies covered but were not limited to: personnel training, skills retention, strengthening of quality processes, dedicated leadership, implementation of project planning software programs, adherence to planning time frames, stakeholder communication, performance management, succession planning, lean principles and implementation of continuous improvement principles . It is recommended that mitigation strategies formulated through this research study be implemented across various power generation stations in order to reduce unreliability of power supply, which due to planned turbine maintenance outages that override the targeted contractual dates. Most importantly, it is recommended that the power generation industry should invest in training and development to ensure that turbine maintenance outages are executed to a high-quality standard and are able to meet the due dates. Future research is recommended to comprehensively investigate management corruption delays and its mitigations.
M.Phil. (Engineering Management)