Summary
The National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA), formerly Eskom Transmission has a long history of transformer procurement shaped by evolving market conditions and legacy supplier relationships. Historically, the organization relied on a small pool of long-standing international transformer suppliers, model that was effective for many years. However, the recent surge in transformer demand driven largely by renewable energy integration and grid strengthening projects resulted in factory slot shortages and extended manufacturing lead times.
Read more Read lessThis placed pressure on organization’s ability to meet project timelines.
This paper highlights an optimised procurement process to address these constraints. A major focus was the optimization and acceleration of sourcing activities through establishment of a pre-qualified supplier panel, the updating of technical specifications and enhancement of the applicable technical evaluation criteria. These interventions reduced the procurement process while they strengthened the competition and safeguarded the technical requirements.
To further combat the bottlenecks in the process, further capability assessments were carried for transformer critical components. The exercise proved to curb the lead times while maintaining standardisation for interchangeability. Supplier onboarding workshops strengthened compliance and improved bid quality. Quality assurance improvements were achieved through risk-based Factory Acceptance Test approach (FAT) as detailed in [1].
This paper concludes that these integrated measures enhanced the efficiency in the procurement process and increased supplier diversity, positioning the utility to meet South Africa ‘s evolving power network infrastructure needs.
Additional informations
| Publication type | Session Materials |
|---|---|
| Reference | A2_10771_2026 |
| Publication year | |
| Publisher | CIGRE |
| Country | South Africa |
| Study committees | |
| File size | 239 KB |
| Price for non member | 30 € |
| Price for member | 30 € |
Authors
HLAKUDI Mantsie; MTETWA Sidwell
Keywords
Global Supply chain value, Optimization, Transformer procurement process
