How Clipper Windpower Jump-Started Itself . . . Big Time

By Drew Robb

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Safety Protocol

Clipper says safety has always been its number one objective. The company stresses safety, quality, timeliness, and cost—in that order. It also borrowed a best practice from other top industries concerning "safety observations and conversations" (SOCs). Employees at a local level go to another work group to observe safety matters during the performance of regular work tasks. They then discuss what they observed, gain feedback from that work group, and submit a report.

"We demand four SOCs per site per month," said Willey. "This is beneficial for all involved since it places safety at the forefront, making it less likely for anyone to drop their guard and begin taking safety for granted."

Logistics Save Time, Improve Service

In general, OMSW is more structured when it comes to the provisioning of workers at sites. Instead of some sites being overprovisioned and some being short of technicians, the deployment of personnel is now more precisely determined using a manpower model. This takes into account a wide range of parameters, including access (compact versus dispersed, as well as ruggedness of the terrain), number of turbines, and so on.

"If you right-size the number of support technicians needed, you cut down considerably on travel costs," said Willey. "Without this model, some of our technicians were traveling the equivalent of one full-time employee annually due to excessive deployment between sites."

In addition, several sites are now designated as regional parts depots. This has cut down considerably on both the amount of time it takes for a part to arrive at a site, as well as the overall cost of parts provisioning. "The bottom line is, our level of service has risen considerably," said Willey. "Better yet, our customers are very happy with the improvements that we've made."

Customer Care

Typically, wind turbine companies create regional managers to deal with the sites in their territories. But if a customer has multiple sites around the country, it can get pretty complicated when customers have to deal with different managers, depending on the location.

Clipper has instead designated managers for each specific customer. One of Clipper's key customers, for example, has a single point of contact for Clipper for all its sites. It has 116 turbines across three sites, which are located in New York and Utah. Two more sites are coming online by year's end, as are an additional six turbines in New York, an additional 16 turbines in Vermont, and 12 more at a site in Hawaii. Regardless of where the customer's sites are located, the customer works with one Clipper OMSW manager.

"Our new processes are boding well with our customers," said OMSW Customer Manager David Howard. "We've received kudos for our success in improving our product, which is really proving its value in the field. At the same time, we've really refined our operations and identified a number of best practices that can be put to use throughout the Clipper fleet."

—Drew Robb is a Los Angeles–based writer specializing in engineering and technology issues.

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