Session ID:

VS4-02

nu Intermediate/Advanced

Steve Wells, Principal Consultant & Paul Dowden, Vice President, Luminant Operating System, Luminant Power

Manufacturing Electricity – The Lean Way
“Yes, we knew we were different, but we did not let that stop us from pursuing Continuous Improvement and waste elimination.”

Steve and Paul will discuss the Luminant Operating System and explain how it manufactures electricity the lean way. Based on this system, Luminant Power is building capabilities across its businesses, changing mind sets and behaviors, increasing the speed of change – resulting in valuable bottom-line contributions, and developing deliberate leadership focused on continuous improvement.

The Luminant Operating System (usually referred to as a Production System in a manufacturing environment) is patterned after the Toyota Production System and has elements centered on employee engagement, development, and involvement. Executive management at Luminant was optimistic about efficiencies based on Lean philosophies and techniques. Subsequently, Luminant’s Operating System, established only four years ago, decided to implement a Lean Operating System.

In late 2005, Luminant made the commitment to mature their lean journey and implement Lean Operations according to the Shingo Prize Model. The Shingo Model advocates implementation of Lean Manufacturing techniques, continuous improvement processes, and operational improvements.To date, two of Luminant’s sites have been recognized by the Shingo Prize as a Silver Medallion and Bronze Medallion. Other improvement focuses have been around improved safety, extensive reliability efforts, deliberate leadership, outage cycle time reductions, increased revenue generation, Overhead and Maintenance cost reductions, and a World Record setting steam generator replacement at their nuclear facility.

Luminant Power's roots are deep. One of the original city and rural electric utilities from which TXU grew was founded all the way back in 1882. That original company became Dallas Power & Light in 1917, and then joined with two other utilities in 1945 under the Texas Utilities holding company. The three merged in 1984 to become TU Electric. They adopted the TXU name in 1999 as they expanded operations and quickly grew to become one of North America's leading energy services companies and energy retailers.  In October 2007, TXU Corp. announced the completion of its merger agreement with Texas Energy Future Holdings Limited Partnership (TEF). TEF is led by a group of investors including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), Texas Pacific Group (TPG) and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners. With the completion of the merger, TXU Corp. changed its name to Energy Future Holdings Corp. Energy Future Holdings Corp. is continuing the transition of its businesses into three separate and distinct business units – TXU Energy, Luminant, and Oncor – with separate boards, management teams, and headquarters. Luminant, a subsidiary of Energy Future Holdings, is a competitive power generation business, which includes Luminant Power, Luminant Energy, Luminant Mining, Luminant Construction. Luminant has approximately 3800 Employees.

Luminant. A subsidiary of Energy Future Holdings (EFH), formerly TXU Corp., is a competitive power generation business, which includes Luminant Power, Luminant Energy (formerly Wholesale), Luminant Mining, and Luminant Construction. Luminant has over 18,3000 MW of generation in Texas, including 2,300 MW of nuclear and 5,800 MW of coal-fueled generation capacity. Luminant is also the largest purchaser of wind-generated electricity in Texas and fifth largest in the United States.

Steve Wells, Principal Consultant

Mr. Steve Wells, as a corporate principal consultant, has been instrumental in Luminant Power’s (formerly TXU Corp.) lean journey. He has helped the four fossil-fueled power plants and associated surface mines make remarkable fast-paced progress, and he has assisted the Nuclear Power Plant to reduce re-fueling times, complete world record major overhauls, and reduce costs to become the lowest cost provider of electrical power. As a result, Martin Lake Complex (a fossil-fueled plant and three surface mines) is receiving a 2008 Shingo Silver Medallion and the Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant is receiving a 2008 Shingo Bronze Medallion. Prior to Luminant, Steve worked at Lockheed Martin for 27 years in multiple positions. He was the team lead when the F-16 and F-22 Programs earned The Shingo Prize in 2000, and most recently was the lead for production operations continuous improvement on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Steve is very active in The Shingo Prize process and has been an examiner since 1999.

Paul Dowden, Vice President, Luminant Operating System, Luminant Power

Mr. Paul Dowden’s primary focus, as vice president of Luminant Operating System, is to extend the operating system’s lean manufacturing techniques and continuous improvement mind set to businesses and operations throughout Luminant. This process has been implemented extensively in Luminant Power over the past two years. Paul joined Luminant from Symbol Technologies, Inc., where he served as senior director of new product introduction and operations, with other roles in engineering, corporate quality, and quality engineering and assurance. Prior to Symbol, Paul worked for TwinStar Semiconductor AT&T. While at AT&T, he was a key driver in the effort to win the Deming Prize for Excellence in Management and Quality System Deployment. Paul is a Shingo Prize examiner with extensive lean manufacturing, implementation, and continuous improvement experience.