A voyage of co-creation – working and learning together
Building a working model for planning, implementing and running the required infrastructure for energy, material and information flows is not a core competence of most industrial companies. Similarly, the capital expense of new infrastructure, with its traditionally long payback times, is not a particularly attractive use of financial resources for most. Outsourcing of services are typically done for
- Enabling lower production costs
- Sharing risks as well as having relevant investment models
- Focusing on primary business.
It therefore makes sense for companies to focus on their primary business while a trusted partner assumes responsibility for their infrastructure needs and for helping them make smart infrastructure investments and creating a circular economy. A key to maximising the potential benefits is enabling co-creation of the model with other market players, such as municipalities, and integrating everybody into the same ecosystem.
A smart working model is needed to build a competitive edge and take utility infrastructure to the next level
How to get started?
The working model we recommend should support customers’ decision making and provide clear milestones on how to progress and what steps are needed. At Nevel, we call this working model the “voyage” for building next level utility infrastructure.
- Exploring phase: The voyage begins with setting targets and expectations for a project. In practice this means creating potential scenarios and steps for cooperation. Deciding on the joint targets requires analysing processes, data, capacity and assumptions as well as building a calculation model for comparing options.
- Navigating phase: An important step in the process is identifying or pre-engineering a solution that fits the set targets and defining the cooperation model for decision making.
- Steering phase: Defining the cooperation model for decision making is followed by project execution according to joint planning.
- Transforming phase: Finally, a new way of working has been defined with delivery and operations model. At this stage the value generated should be at its highest peak, based on jointly set targets.
Cost benefits of outsourcing production
Outsourcing the planning, implementing and running the required infrastructure for energy, material and information flows can be assumed to provide cost benefits in the long run for two key reasons.
First, a partner, such as Nevel, operates a great number of production units, achieving economies of scale for bigger volumes. Therefore the unit costs of production and services are lower.
Second, should an industrial company run their infrastructure with internal expertise, there may not be an incentive or enough focus to generate efficiencies and improve productivity.
Our References
Learn about smarter working models to take industrial infrastructure to the next level.
Continue reading
Your next-level industrial infrastructure partner
Nevel provides industrial customers with expertise and experience on material, information and energy flows and their management to help make smart infrastructure investments and optimise operations. We offer energy solutions including steam and heat, industrial scale cooling and heat recovery, and side stream and material efficiency solutions such as waste recovery and utilisation. We also offer industrial water treatment solutions such as demiwater and nutrient recovery.