4.1. ERMUSR 05-12-2009 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

take-home vehicle, to respond as needed to provide good customer service while protecting the safety of the public. The reasons for management to be on-call are as important, but maybe less obvious to those unfamiliar with the inner workings of the Utilities. There are a number of reasons managers may be called after hours. One important reason is to be able to make financial decisions. There may be cases involving water main breaks or major equipment failures where significant financial decisions need to be made on the spot to restore the utilities and protect the safety of the public. For example, if a water main was to break and third party contractors were needed to be hired in the middle of the night at the cost of thousands of dollars, management would need to make that decision and be responsible for it. Another example would be if a substation power transformer was to fail or the relay protection tripped and shut down the substation. In these cases, decisions would be made that could have substantial financial impact. Procuring a mobile substation or temporary replacement equipment, third party equipment testing or relay protection programming, or third party fault locating would be major decisions that should be made by management. If a substation were to go down, there could be elaborate and extensive switching orders needing to be written and communicated to facilitate rerouting feeders and temporary power while repairs and restoration are in process. This would need to be done by management. When (not if) a major storm hits Elk River and there is extensive damage to the electrical distribution infrastructure, management will need to respond and assess in order to implement an emergency action plan and restoration of services. All of these examples would require first hand assessment of the situation prior to decisions being made. The frequency of these types of occurrences would hopefully be few. But there is little doubt that when they happen, management needs to be equipped and able to respond. This includes providing take-home vehicles. As discussed last month, the frequency of call-outs is an irrelevant number for the valuation of emergency preparedness. The number of times management has been called out in the last couple of years is minimal. However, because of the recent personnel changes and staff restructuring, these frequencies of call-out numbers are even more irrelevant and not directly applicable. These previous numbers were based on different personnel in management and different personnel in lead lineworker positions. With recent promotions, the personnel handling specific situations will be different. The need for teamwork is very important at a time of company transition especially in an industry as dangerous as ours. The probability for management to be called now is much higher than in years past and also more important. Also specifically related to the electric department managers, teamwork is absolutely critical. The Director of Operations, Electric Line Superintendent, and Technical Services Superintendent will all need to work together and be one anothers' backups especially in this time of transition. There will be times when all three are needed to resolve an after hours situation. This is part of having the personnel, the training, and the equipment to effectively and efficiently respond to any issue. In other words, this is emergency preparedness. The reasons for the Security Technician to be on-call are different. This really comes down to customer service. The security systems with monitoring and fire alarm monitoring are sold and have been sold under the understanding that with the 24/7/365 monitoring comes 24/7/365 technical support. (Refer to the attached ERMU Security brochure). These calls get directed to the Security Technician. Because of this employee's vast knowledge of the equipment and installation techniques and this employee's problem solving skills, only approximately 6.25% of after-hours calls require an after-hours trip. If there were someone else in this position, the percentage would probably be much higher. These cases that do require the after-hours trip are