News
Members, suppliers snag awards at the 2012 USA SCM Winter Meeting
Each year for the past three years, several outstanding member utilities and supplier partners are honored at the USA Supply Chain Management (SCM) Winter Meeting. This year was no exception. The USA SCM staff was pleased to present awards to the following individuals and companies.
SCM Optimizer Award: Each year at the annual Executive Summit the Optimizer award is presented to the USA Member who realized the largest return on investment for their Alliance activity. In the same vein, the spend/savings ratio and the percentage of USA agreements used is combined to determine which site will earn the SCM Optimizer Award for the largest return on investment for their supply chain participation. This year’s winner was Palo Verde. With a whopping $2.6 M in supply chain savings, Palo Verde has set the bar for strategic agreement usage throughout their entire utility. Palo Verde has now won this award three years in a row. Congrats!
SCM Engagement Award: Engagement in the SCM team is more than just showing up to meetings and completing action items (as important as those things are). It also includes fully participating in important initiatives, volunteering time and effort for the good of the team, and championing the USA agreements and participation on-site. USA staff was proud to award the SCM Engagement Award to Scott Nicholas, SCM team rep from Fort Calhoun station. Scott has shown exceptional dedication to the USA SCM team and mission throughout the year, earning “green” status on every participation indicator we have, fully participating in all SCM initiatives and, perhaps most impressively, more than doubling Fort Calhoun’s savings through the USA agreements in less than two years. Scott’s reliability and dedication are impressive, and we were very happy to award him the 2011 SCM Engagement Award.
Shining Moment Award: Each year we pick one “shining moment,” one exceptional example of dedication to the Alliance mission, to honor with the Shining Moment Award. This year’s winner was Del Ritchie, the SCM rep from Diablo Canyon. Del is not only exceptionally active in the USA SCM team, but is also an active participant in the NSCSL, the Nuclear Supply Chain Strategic Leadership team, which consists of supply chain professionals from across the industry. He has been working hard to develop supply chain Key Performance Indicators and standards of excellence that can be used across the industry, and continually brings innovative ideas to both groups. Del is also very supportive of his peers across the industry, and was in fact nominated by his peers for this award. Del is certainly a “shining star” in the nuclear supply chain world, and we were delighted to surprise him with this award.
Continuous Improvement Award: Each year our USA suppliers who do business with 50% or more of our members are invited to submit an application for the Continuous Improvement Award. This application gives them the opportunity to describe all the great things that go on behind the scenes that their customers may not be aware of but certainly benefit from. Companies are asked to describe the environmental improvements, Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) savings development/ implementation and internal process improvements their companies have made in the past year. This year, with more suppliers submitting applications than ever before, the competition was intense. After careful deliberation, Graybar emerged victorious. Graybar has shown an impressive commitment to the environment through robust company-wide recycling (a 29% increase in the amount of material recycled was recorded for 2011) and by ensuring new facilities meet LEED standards. Graybar continues to help alliance members save money and energy through lighting updates and did new work at several of our member locations last year. Graybar has also made significant internal improvements by implementing a company-wide CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software platform and smart new technology that allows for less time-consuming and more detailed tracking of shipments. For all this and more, USA is proud to Graybar the 2011 Continuous Improvement Award.
USA Maintenance Core Peer Group meets to further Business Plan initiatives
The Utilities Service Alliance (USA) Maintenance Core Peer Team’s role is to improve performance, promote cost reduction, and influence the industry in the maintenance function within the USA fleet through the identification of areas for improvement and initiation of appropriate resolution fleet-wide or at individual fleet member facilities.
On Jan. 24, seven members of the team met in Atlanta, GA. The group’s discussions were focused around its four 2012 USA Business Plan initiatives:
• Supervisor Effectiveness (being led by Fermi and Prairie Island)
• Rework reduction (being led by Cook and Salem)
• Supplemental Worker performance (being led by Fermi and Prairie Island)
• Work Order Walk-down/Ready to work (being led by Hope Creek and Susquehanna)
The group also spent considerable time discussing the high level of staff turnover being faced across the USA fleet, future tool sharing, resource sharing, and human performance improvement. The group’s efforts are enabling each member to better capitalize on industry experience through the fleet.
The meeting also included an opportunity for the USA members to join the INPO maintenance managers’ working meeting. Approximately 40 maintenance managers from across the industry attended this meeting to share industry issues, best practices, and lessons learned. “This was a valuable opportunity to gain insights from peers who face similar challenges or who have overcome issues similar to those we face,” said Mike Milly, Maintenance Manager at Prairie Island and Chairperson of the USA Maintenance Core Peer Team. The INPO maintenance team discussed efforts to reduce scrams and Industry Event Report 11-2 about procedure use and adherence and work package quality.
The USA maintenance team met next in a Feb. 2 conference call. The agenda for that meeting included a discussion about the Devonway website and improving the use and knowledge of the features offered through the new USA website. The Maintenance Core team meets on a monthly conference call and discusses progress toward these actions and assessment of performance. The second face-to-face meeting for the group this year will be June 7-8 at the USA office in Overland Park, Kansas.