Transpower is a State-Owned Enterprise; it owns and operates the national grid. That means Transpower owns the assets – towers, lines, and substations – that transmit electricity at high voltage throughout New Zealand.

Transpower is also the System Operator, responsible for coordinating and managing the transmission of electricity across the national grid.

In 2011 Transpower underwent an intensive tendering process for the maintenance of the grid assets with the commencement of the new service contracts in July 2012.

Transpower selected five service providers to cover different regions. These are ABB, Electrix, ElectroNet, Northpower, and Transfield Services.

In selecting these companies Transpower made a commitment to a long-term relationship. To support the longevity of the relationship, work was initiated on two core activities to capture the intent, commitment, and shared expectations of the six parties. These were:

• Engagement Model development: specifying the governance, review and relationship forums. This allowed for appropriate levels of one on one engagement between each Service Company and Transpower, while still ensuring a high level of collaborative, multi-party engagement and sharing.
• Charter Development: to establish a shared story about the relationship and how it would work as an ‘orientation’ for people at multiple organisation levels and core reference for the on-going management of the relationship. In a series of regional workshops, plus tool-box briefings, over 600 people at all levels of all six organisations participated and had their ideas reflected in the Charter, the launch plan and the plans for on-going use of the Charter.

This work was led by the Relationship Managers from each company, with support and facilitation provided by Taylored Solutions as an independent party.

The transition to the new contract was successful and the Charter Launch took place in early 2013.