Stanwell Corporation: COSOL provides Ellipse training and delivers to sites across Queensland

Background

Stanwell Corporation is Queensland’s largest electricity generator, with several sites around the state. With the Adobe Flash support sunset announced for Q4 2020, Stanwell embarked on a plan to upgrade its legacy (Flash-dependent) version of Ellipse EAM to the modern HTML5-based Ellipse 9. This was largely a technical upgrade to ensure Stanwell’s EAM system retained vendor support into the future however the new version also brought some enhancements. At the same time, Stanwell undertook a project to rationalise their Chart of Accounts, moving from a separate Chart for each site, to a single, unified Chart for the whole business, as well as the creation of a new corporate district for corporate activities. COSOL resources were engaged for various parts of both projects, which were successfully rolled out to the business in Q1 2020 after a five-week training program which was designed, orchestrated and delivered by COSOL.

 

Challenges

 

Stanwell’s Ellipse users are distributed across seven sites throughout Queensland. Each site had its own constraints around schedules and availability, as well as varying levels of experience with Ellipse and legacy site-based process idiosyncrasies. Due to operational constraints, it was crucial that training was delivered within a tight schedule. Our goal was to ensure all Ellipse users were prepared come go-live and ready to hit the ground running with the new version. This meant a full schedule in terms of travel, the sheer volume of training sessions, and the associated logistics and communications required to support the delivery of such a programme of work.

 

COSOL Delivery
COSOL’s engagement with Stanwell commenced with a Training Needs Analysis (TNA). We worked closely with Stanwell’s IS Project delivery and change management resources as well as its corporate and site-based subject matter experts to identify training needs for Stanwell’s userbase, focusing on the delta in functionality between Ellipse 9 and its legacy version. Findings from the TNA were socialised with Stanwell’s Functional Working Group before moving to the development phase. With the first cut of the training course developed, COSOL validated the content and approach by leveraging the expertise at Stanwell’s two largest sites, Tarong Power Station and Stanwell Power Station, where advance sessions were run for site leaders. These preliminary sessions enabled us to refine the content and ensure that the Stanwell context was woven throughout training sessions for the wider community; tailoring the message and examples to be as relevant to end users and as engaging as possible. Where Ellipse 9 meant major changes to existing processes for users we developed hands-on scenario-based activities to ensure ample practice time during the sessions so that nothing would be new or a surprise come go-live.

In addition to the 68 face-to-face training sessions which COSOL ran at seven Stanwell sites across Queensland in a one-month period, training their entire Ellipse user-base, COSOL also updated Stanwell’s suite of support documentation to match the new screens and new processes in Ellipse 9. This was a large tranche of work with over 150 documents updated, validated by stream leaders and then made available on Stanwell’s intranet for post go-live sustainment. These documents, consisting of User Guides, Cheat Sheets and Work Instructions, are largely use-case based, covering areas of Ellipse from general navigation through to operations and maintenance, supply, finance and even accounts payable/receivable. These are arguably the most important facets of the training program, as these are the processes that Stanwell team members will refer to, long after the upgrade work is complete, and will drive process efficiency, quality and consistency for years to come.

 

Project Summary

COSOL resources worked as part of Stanwell’s Ellipse Upgrade and Chart of Accounts Project team, forming productive and collaborative working relationships across various areas of the business. Using COSOL’s proprietary Ellipse Delta Training Accelerator, we were able to ensure the development of training materials and support artefacts was efficient in terms of both production and internal validation, as well as being of high value to users.
Stanwell went live with Ellipse 9 in Q1 2020 with no major issues. Face-to-face training for all team members had concluded the week prior and ensured that the transition to the new version was as smooth as possible for end users. COSOL worked closely with Stanwell to ensure the delivery of a robust training and enablement plan, representing quality change management and instructional design practices to ensure the success of their Ellipse upgrade project.

“COSOL really know Ellipse training! They worked with us to ensure best-practice implementation bespoke to the needs of our business, our users, our culture and how we use Ellipse here. The level of professionalism demonstrated by the team early on meant that I could leave the training piece and focus myself on the more technical areas of the project”
Rob McLean – ERP Project ICT Manager

“Having our support documentation updated to Ellipse 9, developed into a consistent look and feel, and available for all staff both via the intranet, and excitingly, now integrated as part of the Ellipse in-built business process models, is a real boon for supporting users and driving consistency across sites”
Rob Treloar – Maintenance Management Specialist, Operational Excellence and Business Improvement

“COSOL visited our site to deliver Ellipse 9 training for my team. My initial concerns about death-by-PowerPoint vanished within the first minute. Software training isn’t always the most exciting thing, but the trainers managed to keep it interesting and relevant for my site staff, with activities to help them get the hang of it and an injection of humour here and there to keep us on our toes.”
Justin Ryan – Maintenance and Site Services Superintendent, Operations, Swanbank Power Station

“We engaged COSOL to scope and deliver the training, documentation and supporting activities for our Ellipse 9 upgrade. The team were highly professional, and we have received excellent feedback about them from across the business.”
Michael Flynn – Project Manager

“It was a great experience working with the Stanwell team in developing its Ellipse 9 training and enablement programme. They are a very professional team who are invested in the Ellipse solution and getting the most out of it for their business. This project had some tight timelines but was an excellent program of work with a truly best practice approach for delta training and I hope to work with Stanwell again.”
Lee Solomon – Capability and Enablement Manager, COSOL

You can also download a copy of there case study here: Stanwell Case Study.

To find out how COSOL can help you with your training and upgrade requirements, contact us today to speak with one of our specialists.

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