As we head into 2020, I want to take a few minutes to update you all on the activities taking place within USA for our members. I think it’s safe to say that we have never been busier than we are right now with many new initiatives and activities.
First, we are working diligently on the Request for Proposal (RFP) development phase of a Major Services Sourcing Initiative for an Engineering Partnership agreement (Engineering Services/Engineer of Choice). We have been working on this effort for almost a year now and we think it is a great opportunity for all USA members. We just heard reports back from our CNOs that implementation of our fleetwide MMC agreements is starting to show great promise, and we would expect a similar outcome for a Major Services Sourcing Initiative. We also just completed a whirlwind effort to develop long-term agreements on purchasing and converting Uranium hexafluoride (UF6) into nuclear fuel that will save four of our members an estimated $8M. My thanks to Bob Rose and Jim Kitchens for coordinating this with four of our members in just a few months!
We have been providing frequent updates on our funding request award from the Department of Energy (DOE) to support our Advanced Remote Monitoring (ARM) project, and I’m happy to report that we expect to have contract negotiations completed with full release of funds this quarter. This has been an excellent effort by Clint Carter and the ARM team members to make sure the utility and USA financial & accounting procedures and practices meet all the requirements for this contract. Pre-authorization funding has been given and the stations are actively working on these pilot projects as we speak.
We just recently launched a new initiative for Spend & Rebate Forecasting in an effort to improve our USA contract utilization and provide more predictable spend on our key USA agreements. We feel this initiative will drive more usage of USA agreements with the resulting benefit to all members. Brad Vickery is leading this effort and will be reporting in more detail later this year.
Tim Donovan has already been heavy into supporting and coordinating dozens of 2020 Nuclear Safety Culture (NSCA) and Mid-Cycle Assessments. We currently have nine mid-cycle assessments and nine Nuclear Safety Culture assessments on the schedule for 2020. We also have several NSCAs that are planned but not yet scheduled for 2020 and I’m happy to report that we have recently received requests from Southern, Oak Ridge National Labs, SONGS, and Los Alamos National Labs for NSCAs at their facilities. Needless to say, Tim has been a busy guy and will have a challenging year. Your support on these assessments is always appreciated, and a reminder that every assessment we provide to a non-USA entity reduces your dues for the following year.
This month we will be finishing our USA Annual 2019 Workbook which captures all the savings and value each station receives through their USA membership. We haven’t finalized the numbers yet, but we do know that we once again reduced USA Operating Costs by ~ 3.5% over 2018 levels, USA staff was under budget by > 7%, on average our members received over $30 in value for every dollar spent, we increased hard-dollar savings by almost $5M, and our member average benefit was > $5M. We will be able to share specifics in our next issue of Inside USA.
Once again, our most recent Supply Chain Winter Conference was a huge success. Each year I report that it was better than ever, and this year is no exception. We had a better turnout than ever before, and the engagement between our suppliers and members was better than ever. Jim Kitchens has additional details in this issue of Inside USA. We are also deep into our preparations for this year’s Executive Summit in Huntington Beach, CA. I am quite excited and confident that this Summit will be the best ever! We expect to launch our Summit website in early March so be looking for that announcement.
As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your Site Rep or any of the USA staff if you have ideas, suggestions, or complaints. We are only as good as our members involvement and engagement. Thank you all again for your support and engagement!
