Fermi 2 recently won the coveted Utilities Service Alliance (USA) Optimizer Award. In 2010, Fermi saved a whopping $4,162,675, a 31.76 to 1 return on membership investment, which garnered the award for the fourth time.
“We are proud to accept this award once again. As winners three of the last four years, it is truly a Fermi site-wide effort that we all should take pride in,” said Todd Haberland, Manager- Nuclear Support and USA Management Council representative for Fermi, who accepted the award along with CNO Jack Davis and Supply Chain Manager Brian Hill, at the USA Executive Summit in Grapevine, Texas. “This award represents the tangible and intangible benefits individual nuclear utilities have the opportunity to take advantage of as USA members when acting like a large fleet.”
The USA Optimizer Award annually recognizes the USA member who leverages the most value from its alliance membership through aggressive use of various alliance opportunities. Fermi also won this award for accomplishments in 2004, 2007 and 2009; saving $2M, $2.9M and $3.5M respectively. “Fermi’s longevity represents the type of cornerstone utility that has allowed USA to flourish and prove its value,” Carl Parry, USA President and CEO, said.
Some of Fermi’s big savings came from shared personnel, radwaste disposal through EnergySolutions, Supply Chain leveraging available USA goods and services contracts and peer assistance at member stations. A very supportive UWUA Local 223 collaboration with alliance member union locals has been a perennial cornerstone of shared personnel success. Also, Fermi’s ability to execute refueling outages is greatly enhanced by sharing qualified professionals from RP, Maintenance, Operations, etc. The other plants enjoy the same benefits when Fermi supports their outages in kind. Additionally, virtually all groups and departments on site supported a resource sharing effort at a member utility in some way. “DTE and Fermi demonstrate the very behaviors that lead alliance members to successful performance,” Tom Joyce, USA Chairman of the Board, said.
Other sites recognized this year were second place Cooper Station with $3,807,093 in savings and San Onofre, which came in third with a savings of $3,420,918.
Fermi was an original charter member of USA in 1996. As we move toward the future, Fermi will work to bring an even bigger return as we focus on improving the USA “fleet like” plant performance across the board. “The nuclear industry’s response to recent challenges like Fukashima and ever increasing Security and Operational regulations is a rich field of opportunity for the USA members to demonstrate ‘fleet-like’ performance optimization,” added Jack Davis.
Watch for the award to be rotated across the Fermi site, like hockey’s “Stanley Cup”, and be displayed in various departments to allow groups to celebrate their contribution to this great achievement.
As part of its ongoing commitment to USA, Fermi will host a USA Supply Chain Management Supplier Fair on August 11.