One Year Later: Partnership Continues to Grow Stronger, More Profitable

After one year as the sole maintenance contractor for a large Mid-Atlantic utility company, Day & Zimmermann has helped the customer to increase their productivity and improve their fleet’s quality and safety cultures, all while completing a full year with zero recordables at their largest coal-fired plant.

“We have been consistently complimented on our on-site supervision, as well as our willingness to tell our client the truth when it comes to quality issues,” said D&Z’s Director of Operations for the contract. “They were looking for a contractor that was willing to provide quality, rather than ease, when it came to repairing issues at the facilities.”

The on-site D&Z team made some hard decisions about the craft to drive improvements. “We have had about a 30% employee turnover [between the three sites our M&M contract covers],” he continued. “We are weeding out those who aren’t producing or who don’t and won’t adhere to the safety and quality culture here at the sites.”

D&Z’s first task after mobilizing the contract was an emergency outage. The team was successful and the plant was back on track for its scheduled Spring outage. The next challenge arose when both units at one of the smaller plants went offline simultaneously. The D&Z team quickly mobilized craft workers from other facilities in the fleet to help get the plant back on-line and producing power.

“When you have a net negative provider situation, time is of the essence,” the Fleet Director said.

“By sharing resources between the stations, D&Z was able to provide a quick resolution to the emergency outage, using teams that were already adherents to the core values of the company. We’re demonstrating to our customer that we’re dedicated to meeting their needs and lowering their total cost of ownership.”

The hard work is already paying off—in addition to the standard maintenance work that the team performs, D&Z has been awarded multiple capital projects, additional housekeeping services, engineering work, and maintenance at stations throughout the fleet.