Well-maintained, safe vehicles are critical to the livelihood of Mississippi Power linemen. Without the fleet services department, our linemen wouldn't be able to safely drive to a job site or get their work done.

Throughout the years, our line crews and fleet services department have developed a close relationship, which has helped us to increase efficiency out in the field and improve our safety.

Jason Smith, Mississippi Power's fleet services manager, says that good communication between fleet services and the field crews is essential to a good fleet management program. “Managing the fleet is a team effort between fleet services and the customers we serve,” notes Smith, who has worked for Mississippi Power for 23 years. “We work with linemen on a daily basis to make sure they have the right equipment, and we maintain it so it's safe and reliable for them.”

Mississippi Power, an investor-owned electric utility based in southeast Mississippi, manages 1067 active units, including 122 aerial lifts, 29 derricks/cranes, 300 light pickups, 49 medium-duty trucks, 11 cars, 257 trailers and 264 pieces of equipment. Over the last decade, Mississippi Power has increased the number of units by 50-100. All of these units are owned rather than leased to cut down on costs, Smith says.

Fleet Maintenance

Mississippi Power linemen do an incredible job keeping the lights on for their customers, Smith observes. To help them do their jobs in the safest and most efficient way, the fleet services department strives to make sure linemen have the right equipment.

“We have to make sure we can schedule preventive maintenance so it doesn't interfere with what [the linemen] have to do every day,” says Smith, who started out at Mississippi Power as a mechanic.

As any lineman knows, there's nothing worse than driving all the way to a job site and having an aerial lift, a piece of equipment or a boom truck not work. If we have a problem, we try to fix it ourselves or, if it's beyond our scope of knowledge, we call the vehicle maintenance center (VMC), which sends a service truck to the job site to reduce down time.

The VMC is equipped with the latest technology. In the mid-1990s, our company started investing in laptops, which help the 13 mechanics diagnose problems. Our mechanics used to rely on standard mechanic tools to work on the vehicles. Because the new bucket trucks and line trucks are so complex and computer controlled, our mechanics now need laptops to get jobs done in a timely manner.

In addition, to speed vehicle-related maintenance, Mississippi Power has automated its fleet system. The utility used to manually file all of its transportation work orders. But for the past 10 to 12 years, however, the utility has been using an electronic data system.

Smith says that he wouldn't even want to think about going back to the old days of having to tack orders to the wall. “With the number of units and compliance/safety inspections that we have to keep up with, we would have to hire three to six extra people if we did it manually again,” he notes.

Vehicle Inspection

Twenty years ago, Mississippi Power linemen walked around their trucks, did a quick visual inspection and often made their own repairs. Today, they spend 45 minutes to an hour checking their vehicles for leaks, rotating the boom, testing their brakes, turning on their lights and making a thorough inspection of their vehicles inside and out.

To help linemen identify problems with their service trucks and boom trucks, the utility's safety and fleet department supplied all trucks with pre-trip inspection books. We keep these books in our vehicles at all times. In the morning before we drive to the job site, we page through the book, conduct a thorough inspection and then sign off on it. When the book is finished, we turn them over to management, who keeps them for at least 90 days.

Mississippi Power field crews are required to comply with the Department of Transportation's federal regulations on vehicle maintenance. If linemen are operating aerial devices such as boom trucks, they must also follow the guidelines of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Each truck has a copy of the inspection book, and the linemen are required to date, sign and document any problems when they do the inspection each morning, Smith says.

Listening to Linemen

By developing a good relationship with the fleet management department, we're able to share ideas with them on ways to make the vehicles safer and more efficient. For example, our field crews wanted a way to reach a 60-ft pole, so we told the department, who then purchased a larger bucket based on the business need of the company. When I first started, we climbed a lot of poles, and now we have the luxury of these larger buckets. The department also added hydraulic tools such as ground rod driver and pole tamps to the truck.

Smith notes that the fleet services department listens to the linemen and if they have an idea, the department tries to incorporate it in any way it can as long as the business case brings value to the organization. It's the utility's top priority to make sure the field employees are safe at all times, he says. To help reduce accidents, the utility has equipped the majority of its service trucks with backup cameras, which minimizes hazards when a single driver is operating a vehicle, Smith notes.

By having a strong relationship with our field crews, the fleet management department is able to address issues in a timely manner and help linemen come home safely at the end of every day.

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Cleveland Adams, a lead lineman for Mississippi Power's Coast division, manages an apprentice and two linemen. He has worked for the utility for 22 years. He started his career as a helper and then became a truck driver, apprentice lineman, lineman and troubleshooter.

A GREEN FLEET

Mississippi Power's Atlanta-based parent company, Southern Company, has invested in plug-in and fuel hybrid vehicles, and the utility is starting to do the same. So far, Mississippi Power has purchased one hybrid car and is looking to buy a few more.

According to Jason Smith, the utility's fleet services manager, one of his projects for 2008 is to look into renewable energy such as bio-diesel.

“The technology is getting better, and if you put the hybrid in the right place, it can save money and it's the right thing to do for the environment,” explains Smith.