What We Do
Risk-informed zero-base budgeting
MCR reduces and controls O&M costs by working with budget owners to justify all budget expenditures from a baseline of zero. We categorize every budget line item by evaluating the risk incurred if not funded and then perform a risk evaluation of the complete budget. Our “challenge process” uses a peer review method to assess each budget line item and identify timing and funding flexibility for each expenditure. Risk-informed budgeting can produce savings of 10%–15% while maintaining safety, reliability, and adherence to company goals.
Read our risk-informed budgeting white paper
Read how a utility saved $15 million with risk-informed budgeting
Read how a utility identified $99 million in savings with risk-informed budgeting
Process improvement
MCR’s approach to process improvement models core processes for the entire organization. Our approach extends to an individual contributor level, with every process step, hand-off, and deliverable detailed in a work breakdown structure format. Each process step and each organization’s role in it are evaluated and scored, producing a rolled-up view of performance. These deep insights pinpoint exactly where processes and organizations need improvement.
Read the process improvement white paper
Coal plant retirement financial analysis
MCR provides end-to-end financial analysis for coal generation station retirements, grounded in expected operations and maintenance requirements. During decommissioning, we review site O&M budgets to identify risks and uncover savings opportunities. We also develop site remediation and demolition estimates to capture costs across multiple future pathways, while identifying asset retirement obligations in accordance with utility accounting best practices. The result is a clear financial roadmap to sustain confidence in decommissioning and demolition decisions.
Read how MCR developed a defensible financial forecast to retire a multi‑unit coal‑fired plant
Capital portfolio optimization
MCR’s consultants analyze existing capital plans and develop a short-form business case approach for every proposed project. Leveraging these business cases, risk is valued for every project to evaluate proposed investments. MCR’s Portfolio Dashboard summarizes the strategic alignment of portfolio investments and identifies opportunities to reduce, delay, or reallocate capital funding.
Capitalization policies and procedures
MCR experts review, analyze, and benchmark capitalization policies to ensure management is consistently capitalizing all allowable costs. We also assess the retirement unit catalog and make recommendations for additions, deletions, or modifications to ensure alignment with the latest industry capitalization best practices. Our approach provides clear capitalization guidance, reduces the time required to analyze capital funding requests, and identifies O&M capitalization opportunities.
Read our capitalization policy white paper
Capital project evaluation
MCR optimizes capital project spending by developing robust business cases with creative alternatives, incorporating cost as well as reliability and safety risks. Our exhaustive research to determine equipment failure probabilities and consequences allows us to objectively evaluate investment alternatives to avoid equipment failure. We also establish and facilitate a client Executive Review Team to review the business cases and make the final spending decisions.
Life cycle management planning
MCR’s experts develop life cycle management plans to sustain the long-term health of key utility systems. We undertake complete discovery of the “known or knowable” equipment issues to ensure our plans are complete and prevent surprises. These plans support the achievement of safety and reliability objectives, optimize long-term expenses, and instill confidence in the capital plan.
Long-range planning
MCR develops and implements strategies to improve long-range planning processes and supporting information systems with a focus on equipment reliability, workforce optimization, outage planning, and budgeting. Our established processes ensure equipment reliability is fully integrated with work management, business planning, budgeting, and workforce planning functions.
Management reporting
MCR develops and implements improvements to management reporting processes and systems to provide greater visibility and understanding of O&M, capital, and outage costs, including their associated drivers. In every case, we focus on creating views tied to actionable information with a focus on ownership and accountability.
Staffing optimization
Often conducted in concert with risk-informed zero-base budgeting, MCR develops detailed task analyses for every staffing resource, determines task criticality, and risk-ranks every task across the organization. We create consolidated profiles across the organization to determine where staffing resource opportunities lie. This information is then used to create a staffing optimization plan, incorporating expected attrition, for integration with the overall risk-informed budget.
Implementation of the Copperleaf Suite of asset optimization tools
MCR works with IFS Copperleaf and large utilities to implement the Copperleaf suite of asset optimization tools:
- Copperleaf Asset: To forecast sustainment needs and manage risk in your critical infrastructure
- Copperleaf Portfolio: To make the highest value decisions and create the optimal investment strategy
- Copperleaf Value: To increase business agility and transparency across the enterprise
MCR’s implementation roles include data conversion and integration, reporting, training, and value framework application to investment request valuations. We apply our deep utility experience and asset-specific knowledge to integrate business case development with Copperleaf value frameworks. We work directly with utility clients and IFS Copperleaf through kickoff, rollout, and implementation.