I don’t know about you, but I sure did enjoy seeing some old, young, or new friends at the 2022 USA Executive Summit and Supplier Showcase.  The presentations were incredible, the pre-Summit team meetings were great, and the hospitality was spectacular.  Most of all we had a chance throughout the entire week to talk face to face about how we can make USA better for the suppliers and the members.  Making USA better for you is the theme for my time with you this month.  Let’s look at three areas where USA is working hard to make things better for you and make us stronger and better at providing “Simple, Cost Effective Excellence” to our members.

The first, and potentially most important program USA is working hard on to make things better for you is our Nuclear Safety Culture Self-Assessment program.  Having worked in this industry for 37 years the one thing I learned is we have to create a safe working environment for everyone regardless of position, location, age, gender, race, rank, or pay.  While we certainly miss Tim Donovan, and we wish him well, Alec McGalliard has hit the ground running with what seems to be week after week after week of assessments.  Additionally, Paragon, one of our USA supplier partners, has also stepped up and scheduled an assessment for later this year.  This is a great program and available to just about anyone reading this article.  Alec will share more details about this year’s activity in his article below.

USA supplier partner agreement utilization is the next area where we are working to make things better for you.  USA created a new report we call “What If” rebate scenarios.  These scenarios were created using our initial spend and rebate forecast results to see what the rebate could look like at the end of the year by achieving the next rebate tier.  Supplier rebates typically have spend thresholds to incentivize the members to direct their available spend to the USA agreement.  This creates a win/win scenario for the supplier and the member.  More spend for the supplier equals more rebate savings for the member.  By hypothetically increasing spend to achieve the first tier or next highest tier rebate we calculated what the USA rebate total potential could be.  The result would be to essentially double our current rebate.  We know that would be a difficult stretch goal, however the bigger goal is to institutionalize a culture whereby the USA agreements are utilized whenever possible so we can increase spend for our supplier partners and rebates for our members.

Lastly, we are strategically growing the alliance to make things better for you by signing Urenco USA as our newest member to join the USA alliance.  It’s been years since a new member has joined USA.  I’m very excited to see how this works and the value it will bring to our supplier partners and members.  USA is working quickly to get Urenco staff familiar with our agreements so they can begin utilizing the agreements, programs, and processes we have in place.  USA also continues to work with KHNP as we work together to assess all we potentially have to offer one another.  It was a real pleasure having KHNP and KNP suppliers attend the summit, meet face to face, and talk about new opportunities.

Brad Vickery, Director of Procurement Systems