Renewed Vigour

When Intercolombia, Colombia’s biggest electrical transmission company, began its asset management journey, decisions about asset renewal and disposal were based on a combination of technical criteria, cost, and individuals’ expert judgement.

Intercolombia has a large and ageing asset base, including more than 10,500 kilometres of network and 90 substations. To properly plan its future investment, the company needed a clear and effective strategy for managing assets approaching end-of-life. But there were important opportunities for improvement in the existing decision-making and renewal processes. Something had to change – and the beginning of the company’s asset management journey in 2014 provided the opportunity.

Since the journey began, Sergio Andrés Jaramillo Lopera has led the transformation of Intercolombia’s approach to asset renewal and disposal. The company now has a proportionate, integrated criticality, health, and risk-based methodology for deciding the optimum time to renew or replace an asset.

The company’s asset management transformation involved several parallel workstreams, each headed up by a thematic leader. Sergio was appointed thematic leader for Optimising Asset Renewal and Disposal. During the asset management project, he advanced from a standing start to become an acknowledged expert in decision-making,
renewal and disposal of assets. 

He participated in workshops with directors and managers to develop a clear and effective strategy for renewal and disposal. With the strategy agreed, he led the rollout of a renewal strategy aligned to the organisation’s goals. 

Additionally, the rollout of the decisionmaking methodology has been successful, largely because it is not a “black box” solution. Sergio has been part of a structured transformation that includes culture, competencies and business processes. It is documented in a manual and enabled by decision support tools and software. 

Working closely with colleagues from maintenance department and regional operations centres, Sergio organised a mixture of formal training, learning by doing, exam testing, and independent validation to support the rollout.

The decision-making methodology gives Intercolombia consistent ways to support decisions using the established SALVO (Strategic Assets: Lifecycle Value Optimisation) process. Implementing the methodology involves ongoing collaboration between multidisciplinary groups of experts, led by a decision owner, supported by a process facilitator, and validated by a financial expert.

Having a collaboratively developed, defined and documented methodology means that the processes and good practices established as part of Intercolombia’s asset management transformation are sustainable, and contribute to a culture of continuous improvement. As part of this culture, the methodology is now reviewed at least once a year, and Intercolombia’s overall asset management maturity is being assessed by The Woodhouse Partnership Ltd (TWPL).

And decision-making methodology is already yielding significant savings. Sergio’s outstanding contribution as the methodology leader for this work has broken  down organisational silos, providing a clear sense of purpose and line of sight across the whole company.