Mainpower Case Study

What does MainPower do?

Operates North of the Waimakariri River through the Waimakariri, Hurunui and Kaikoura districts.
Provides electricity distribution services to around 42,000 houses and businesses.
Consumer trust-owned electricity distribution business.
Investing heavily in renewable energy, including the Mt Cass Wind Farm and Cleardale mini-hydro plant.

Who is MainPower?

MainPower is an electricity distribution business providing lines services to the North Canterbury region. Their focus is on providing a safe, secure supply of electricity to their customers and supporting the local community. This work is enabled by their ongoing investment in technology to improve the business and provide value to customers.

MainPower partnered with STATE3 to ensure that they could bring the technology and business components of their organisation together. They wanted to be able to quickly identify any risk and mitigate the impact of changes.  

Before STATE3, MainPower's IT and Project teams relied on siloed information about their technologies and infrastructure. This was stored in various places across the business which meant getting a 'true one view' of the business was time-consuming and frustrating.

Mary Meehan, Development Manager, explains,

'Prior to STATE3 Enterprise we had nothing that showed our integrations between applications.

We had Visio diagrams, but we did not have a way of visualising the applications and the touch points between them.

Without STATE3 Enterprise we would need to go back to the drawing board every time and draw up something fresh.'

Having a dynamic and explorable current state environment (STATE3 Enterprise) has enabled their team to get an accurate understanding of both the technology and business environment and the Impact Assessment report allows them to determine the impact of potential changes.

Now they can share their current state with technology partners and speed up the process of familiarising new team members, shaping and quoting for projects.

Mainpower has reduced the cost of all business and technology projects as they no longer need third parties to repeatedly develop a current state or do extensive analysis and design before a project begins. Instead, they use STATE3 Enterprise as their current state and impact assessments.

Infrastructure plays a massive part in helping Mainpower's organisation run smoothly. For Infrastructure Manager, Colin Fowler, using STATE3 Enterprise to manage MainPower's comprehensive corporate environments provides different benefits.

'Infrastructure, to a certain degree, is reasonably static.

We could go back to running a spreadsheet but that would not allow us to work outside the silo we are in.

STATE3 breaks down those barriers and helps us look at the business in a wider way.

We can move from looking at a server as a box, to seeing it as component of an application or business system and see its context. We need to move away from the 'nuts and bolts' of running infrastructure to delivering more value’.

MainPower found that STATE3 Enterprise also supports their knowledge management. Previously, key information about how technology was connected with other systems, who used the technology and how it worked, was stored in individuals heads.

'Previously, if people left the business, that legacy knowledge would be gone, but now it’s recorded and accessible.

Once it is in STATE3, it is permanently recorded and can be shared with everyone, now and into the future,'

- Mary Meehan, Development Manager

MainPower knows that change is essential to long-term success.

Being able to understand the current state and use this as a baseline is essential in achieving MainPower’s vision. For Mary's team, change management is key for long-term success.

'The STATE3 Enterprise Impact Assessment is part of our change management process.

We use it to answer questions like what are the impacts? What are the integrations? What are we touching?

STATE3 provides a view and awareness of the magnitude of what we need to address.

Change is not about a technical change going directly to a developer. We found that we would start a change and the impact to the business required many other factors to be considered as the change was being made.

Now, the change process involves BAs doing the analysis piece upfront to go through a thorough change assessment - is it a process change? who is involved? what other people? what are the systems?

We consider all of this before we look at making the technical changes.'

  - Mary Meehan, Development Manager

STATE3 Enterprise is now core to MainPower's wider change management process. The last step is to ensure that once changes are finalised, and the current state model is updated. This is a manual step that supplements the automated processes that keep STATE3 Enterprise up to date.

Would your organisation benefit from an up to date current state? A decrease in project cost? Or an improvement in infrastructure and knowledge management?

Consider partnering with STATE3

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Mainpower Case Study

What does MainPower do?

Who is MainPower?

'Prior to STATE3 Enterprise we had nothing that showed our integrations between applications.

We had Visio diagrams, but we did not have a way of visualising the applications and the touch points between them.

Without STATE3 Enterprise we would need to go back to the drawing board every time and draw up something fresh.'

'Infrastructure, to a certain degree, is reasonably static.

We could go back to running a spreadsheet but that would not allow us to work outside the silo we are in.

STATE3 breaks down those barriers and helps us look at the business in a wider way.

We can move from looking at a server as a box, to seeing it as component of an application or business system and see its context. We need to move away from the 'nuts and bolts' of running infrastructure to delivering more value’.

'Previously, if people left the business, that legacy knowledge would be gone, but now it’s recorded and accessible.

Once it is in STATE3, it is permanently recorded and can be shared with everyone, now and into the future,'

'The STATE3 Enterprise Impact Assessment is part of our change management process.

We use it to answer questions like what are the impacts? What are the integrations? What are we touching?

STATE3 provides a view and awareness of the magnitude of what we need to address.

Change is not about a technical change going directly to a developer. We found that we would start a change and the impact to the business required many other factors to be considered as the change was being made.

Now, the change process involves BAs doing the analysis piece upfront to go through a thorough change assessment - is it a process change? who is involved? what other people? what are the systems?

We consider all of this before we look at making the technical changes.'

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CONTACT US

STATE3

Mainpower Case Study

What does MainPower do?

Who is MainPower?

'Prior to STATE3 Enterprise we had nothing that showed our integrations between applications.

We had Visio diagrams, but we did not have a way of visualising the applications and the touch points between them.

Without STATE3 Enterprise we would need to go back to the drawing board every time and draw up something fresh.'

'Infrastructure, to a certain degree, is reasonably static. We could go back to running a spreadsheet but that would not allow us to work outside the silo we are in. STATE3 breaks down those barriers and helps us look at the business in a wider way.

We can move from looking at a server as a box, to seeing it as component of an application or business system and see its context. We need to move away from the 'nuts and bolts' of running infrastructure to delivering more value’.

'Previously, if people left the business, that legacy knowledge would be gone, but now it’s recorded and accessible.

Once it is in STATE3, it is permanently recorded and can be shared with everyone, now and into the future,'

'The STATE3 Enterprise Impact Assessment is part of our change management process.

We use it to answer questions like what are the impacts? What are the integrations? What are we touching?

STATE3 provides a view and awareness of the magnitude of what we need to address.

Change is not about a technical change going directly to a developer. We found that we would start a change and the impact to the business required many other factors to be considered as the change was being made.

Now, the change process involves BAs doing the analysis piece upfront to go through a thorough change assessment - is it a process change? who is involved? what other people? what are the systems?

We consider all of this before we look at making the technical changes.'

NAVIGATE

CONTACT US

STATE3

'Infrastructure, to a certain degree, is reasonably static.

We could go back to running a spreadsheet but that would not allow us to work outside the silo we are in.

STATE3 breaks down those barriers and helps us look at the business in a wider way.