Degree

Master of Business Administration Executive

Faculty / School

School of Business Studies (SBS)

Year of Award

2026

Advisor/Supervisor

Mr. Faisal Jalal, Adjunct Faculty, Department of Marketing

Project Type

MBA Executive Research Project

Access Type

Restricted Access

Keywords

Power Distribution Reliability, SAIFI and SAIDI, Industrial Feeder Performance, Seven Basic Quality Tools, Root Cause Analysis, Pareto Analysis, Operational Excellence

Executive Summary

Reliable electricity supply is essential for sustaining industrial productivity and continued day-to-day economic activity in Karachi. Being the sole vertically integrated power utility provider in the city, K-Electric plays a critical role in supporting industrial operations through dependable feeder performance and efficient power distribution in Karachi. Industrial consumers are highly sensitive to interruptions and voltages instability, making feeder reliability sensitive to any interruption.

Despite improvement in generation capacity, industrial feeders continue to experience frequent interruptions, prolonged outages and operational inefficiencies. These issues increase the cost of doing business, reduce industrial productivity and encourage industries to shift towards alternative energy sources such as captive and solar power generation. The study estimated the annual cost of energy not supplied (ENS) to be 2.61 Bn, highlighting significant financial impact due to unreliable industrial feeders. This problem is not only affecting industrial operations but also hampers utility revenue.

The study evaluated the operational reliability of 482 industrial feeders using approximately 29,863 system outage data obtained from K-Electric. A mixed method approach was adopted using reliability indices (SAIFI, SAIDI, MAIFI) along with Seven Basic Quality Tools such as Pareto analysis, scatter plots, Histogram and Control Charts. Qualitative insights were also obtained through discussion with operational personnel and industry experts to validate findings and identify operational challenges.

The analysis revealed that the reliability problem is concentrated on a limited number of feeders rather than evenly distributed across the network. A total of 79 feeders overlapped across critical SAIFI, SAIDI and MAIFI categories, indicating recurring reliability concerns on the same group of feeders. Landhi and Qayumabad emerged as highest risk grids due to their consistently poor performance. The findings also demonstrated strong positive relationship between interruption frequency, outage duration and momentary interruptions. Several feeders showed repeated operational failures, thus contributing disproportionally to customer interruptions and outages duration.

Based on the finding, the study recommends feeder level reliability-based prioritization, targeted preventive maintenance, and implementation of a reliability centered operations improvement framework. The study further recommends strengthening outage management practices, enhancing monitoring of high-risk feeders, and adopting data driven maintenance planning. These measures can significantly improve industrial feeders’ reliability, customer satisfaction and long-terms business stability for industries and K-Electric.

Pages

xiii, 150

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