Toward smart production: Machine intelligence in business operations

As the superintendent of Vistra Corp's Luminant Martin Lake Power Plant, Wayne Brown is an expert in power generation. Vistra is the largest competitive power producer in the United States, operating power plants in 12 states and producing more than 39 gigawatts of electricity--enough to power nearly 20 million homes. The company has been on a journey to drive operational excellence across its generation portfolio. Launched in 2016, its Operational Performance Initiative has driven a step-change improvement in the efficiency of its assets, generating hundreds of millions in incremental EBITDA along the way. This article is a collaborative effort by Duane S. Boning, Vijay D'Silva, Pete Kimball, Bruce Lawler, Retsef Levi, and Ingrid Millan, representing views from McKinsey's Operations Practice and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Machine Intelligence for Manufacturing and Operations program. To maintain and improve its position, Vistra is continually looking for the tools, technologies, and approaches that will help it achieve the next level of performance. Most recently, the company has turned to digital and analytics, including machine intelligence (MI). It measures how much electricity is generated for each ton of fuel consumed by the plant.