Completion Report
Project Summary:
The objective of this project was to assist the Estates Energy department in determining the strategic way ahead with regards to the management of utility services across the entire university campus. To assist with this process the following key objectives were identified;
- Identify and procure services of an Energy consultancy to assist with all aspects of the project
- Investigate the business requirements regarding the capture of the required energy consumption with regards to electricity, gas, water, heating and cooling for both the Estates department and consumers of energy throughout the university
- Based on the defined business requirements, undertake a gap analysis with regards to the existing systems
- Review the marketplace with regards to alternative solutions based on the business requirements
This project has delivered the following reports through the identified and selected external consultancy;
-
Metering Monitoring and Reporting
- The defined business requirements based on both current processes, current issues, blockers and aspirational requirements based on consultation with representatives from the Estates Energy and Controls Department, key business partners such as Accommodation Catering and Events (ACE) and Social Responsibility and Sustainability (SRS)
- Required system outputs were reviewed in conjunction with associated input data sources
- A review of the current metering related infrastructure was undertaken resulting in recommendations regarding additional metering requirements
- Further consultation was undertaken with other universities throughout the UK to get an understanding of the Energy Monitoring and Tracking (M&T) systems utilised along with current challenges
- A Gap Analysis review of potential M&T systems based on the UoE specified business requirements
- Recommendations for the future
- Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) Supplier Review incorporating;
- A Gap Analysis review of potential AMR suppliers based on a set of technical criteria associated with capturing utilities usage
- Conclusions on potential suppliers
- Energy and Utility Metering Implementation Strategy incorporating
- Metering strategy across the university campus
- Technologies for capturing utilities usage
As a result of this project and the outputs generated, planning is now underway to commence a planned follow-on project that will look to implement the recommendations of this report at a pilot site within the university campus
Analysis of Resource Usage:
Staff Usage Estimate: 50 days
Staff Usage Actual: 25 days
Staff Usage Variance: 50%
Other Resource Estimate: 0 days
Other Resource Actual: 0 days
Other Resource Variance: 0%
Explanation for variance:
As a result of the work being scheduled and undertaken by the external consultant, this greatly reduced the estimated effort within IS Applications, as detailed below;
| Project Phase | Department | Estimate | Actual |
| Initiation and Planning | Project Services | 3.5 days | 3.5 days |
| Engage Consultant | Project Services | 9 days | 2.6 days |
| Business Analysis | Project Services | 8 days | 6.7 days |
| Gap Analysis | Project Services | 4 days | 3 days |
| Markeyt Analysis |
Project Services Development Technology |
7 days 5 days |
2.5 days 0 days |
| Acceptance of Strategic Report | Project Services | 4 days | 2.5 days |
| Closure | Project Services | 2 days | 1 day |
| Contingency | 7 days | 3.2 days | |
| QA Reporting (subsequently recoded in sections above) | 1 day | 0 days | |
| Total | 50.5 days | 25 days |
Whilst the project was scheduled to be delivered in June 2016, closure of the project has been delayed to October, due to the following;
- Additional time was requested by the Estates department to review the inital report prepared by the consultant, delaying the scheduled closure to August 2016
- In reviewing the initial report, the project team determined that further work was required to extend the report to incorporate further analysis on both the metering and potential AMR suppliers, delaying the production of the final report to 28th October 2016
Key Learning Points:
- In acknowledging that there was a lack of resource availability within the Estates Energy and Controls department to fully drive the review, the decision was taken to contract additional external resource to undertake the majority of the work
- Independent analysis provided an objective overview
- The external consultancy was able to utilise / refer to information gained on similar analysis type projects
- Wherever possible the project sponsor should direct that time recording for business partner time is recorded to enable firstly; a more realistic cost to be a attributed to the project and secondly; to enable business partners to have a greater awareness of time required for reference for future projects
Outstanding issues:
There are no outstanding issues