Nebraska Public Power District Chooses Oniqua MRO Analytics

DENVER, CO, April 25, 2012 (Press-News.org) Oniqua MRO Analytics (www.oniqua.com), the leading provider of analytics-based MRO optimization solutions for asset-intensive organizations, today announced that Nebraska Public Power District has chosen Oniqua Analytics Solution (OAS) to optimize its MRO inventory activities, which include cost management, controlling inventory growth levels and improving critical material availability across its operations.

Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) is Nebraska's largest electric utility, with a chartered territory including all or parts of 91 of Nebraska's 93 counties. NPPD generating facilities include a nuclear plant (Cooper Nuclear Station), three steam plants (Canaday, Gerald Gentleman Station and Sheldon), a combined-cycle facility (Beatrice Power Station), wind generation and hydroelectric facilities, and three peaking units. Over 5,000 miles of transmission lines make up the NPPD electrical grid system, which delivers power to over one million Nebraskans.

"Our main mission at NPPD is to safely generate and deliver reliable, low cost, sustainable energy and provide outstanding customer service," stated NPPD CEO and President Pat Pope. "One of the critical path areas for providing reliable electric service to our customers is ensuring high availability of the spare parts and materials required to support our MRO activities, while ensuring we do so in a cost-effective and responsible manner."

As a key step in early due diligence, Oniqua performed a Business Value Assessment (BVA). As part of the BVA process, Oniqua's Professional Services team reviews prospective clients' current operations and leverages actual client data from their ERP and EAM systems to map out specific areas where significant business value can be achieved. An indicative project scope and business case is then developed and presented.

"As part of our BVA process, we gathered input from key NPPD stakeholders, configured OAS to reflect NPPD's business needs, conducted a preliminary optimization of their inventory and reviewed the results with the team," stated Steve Sotwick, Vice President, Oniqua MRO Analytics. "The final report provided a set of recommendations that identified several key areas where NPPD could take immediate action to optimize inventory levels and save cost, all while maintaining or improving service levels."

The implementation phase of OAS began in April 2012, and is expected to be in full production state for use by late summer 2012. To help institute best business practices for MRO materials management and ensure NPPD receives maximum value from OAS, NPPD will work closely with Oniqua's Professional Services team, which consists of experienced MRO industry consultants across materials management, engineering and maintenance disciplines.

"With a utility's sizable and widely distributed MRO inventory, an investment in inventory optimization provides significant returns," commented Ralph Rio, Research Director of Enterprise Software, ARC Advisory Group. In a recent research report entitled, Utilities Improve Financial Performance for MRO Inventory, Maintenance, and Procurement, Ralph stated, "OAS provides utilities with a comprehensive solution for optimizing MRO inventory, maintenance and procurement activities. It uses analytical tools to determine what materials are needed, when they should be ordered, how much stock to maintain, and what suppliers to use." Ralph added, "Inventory optimization improves asset uptime and materials cost which also benefits the P&L statement, balance sheet and shareholder value."

Powered by intelligent analytics technology, OAS is the only analytics-based solution of its kind to optimize supply chain and asset management operations across the full range of MRO activities, including equipment performance, maintenance effectiveness, inventory optimization, procurement effectiveness, supplier performance and supply chain effectiveness.

OAS is offered as a hosted solution as well as through an on-premise licensing model.

About Oniqua MRO Analytics
With operations in the Americas, Africa and Asia-Pacific regions, Oniqua is the world's leading MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Operations) analytics software company. Oniqua helps organizations maximize profits, savings and efficiencies by minimizing MRO waste, and delivers a positive return on investment in as little as three to six months. Oniqua Analytics Solution (OAS) leverages customers' transactional data by applying advanced analytics to identify inefficiencies and ensure that their maintenance, inventory and procurement operations run as efficiently as possible. Oniqua is proud to serve the world's leading companies in the oil and gas, mining, utilities and other asset-intensive industries, including ConocoPhillips, BP, Hawaiian Electric, Nebraska Public Power District, Orange County Transportation Authority, Vale, Codelco, Rio Tinto, Anglo Coal, BHP Billiton, Newmont Mining, Alcoa, Xstrata, Drummond Company, Freeport McMoRan and many others. www.oniqua.com