Reflections ... Q2 All Hands, Heads, & Hearts

APM Team,

First, I want to say Thank You to everyone who participated in the All Hands, Heads & Hearts event yesterday. I enjoyed the opportunity to speak with you about our business, discuss your questions, and celebrate the success each of you has delivered for APM in the first half of this year.

Allow me to briefly summarize some topics we reviewed.

• Our spring outage season performance was very good, especially in our top focus areas of safety (all home safe) and quality (do work right the first time). While we had some challenges, especially working within a pandemic, our overall performance improved and moved closer to the excellence standard we are seeking. Our culture is taking root, and it is critical for us to maintain this momentum.

• We also emphasized that the business must be conservative due to the volume shifts spurred by COVID. We have prioritized cost actions and are expecting most of the volume to rebound in Q3 and Q4. Protecting our people within these decisions is our top priority.

• Finally, we reviewed some dynamics within the power market and the potential mid and long term impacts of the changing world around us. There may be a decreased demand for power with more people staying at home, which means power generating units are not operating as much. There is also volatility in oil and gas markets and a continued emergence of renewables. Many customers are holding cash and not investing in new units or upgrades. These dynamics (and more) are reasons we must continually transform, challenging our current ways with an eye on winning the future. Each of us can do this by embracing Lean concepts in our daily lives and ways of working – identifying work we are doing that drives value for our employees, customers, and shareholders and executing a STOP when our work does not drive value.

During our event, we also answered questions you submitted. Below are three we ran out of time to address, so I will do that here.

• Is it safe to say that with the increase of Covid-19 cases in Houston that the corporate facilities will continue operating with minimal staff?

  • We will not push for a return to any office until we are confident we can safely do so. However, we will begin preparations in the facilities to ensure we are ready when it is safe to return.

• On new hire paperwork can you eliminate the insurance forms? Everyone has insurance and it’s a waste of paper…

  • I appreciate the thought to simplify (I just asked us to execute a STOP when our work does not drive value). Thank you! We will research this suggestion and see if we can reduce waste.

• What does our future look like? What’s going on within APM?

  • Please see the above three bullets summarizing the business update we shared. Our performance has been very good; we are being fiscally conservative during the COVID volume shift; as the power market continues to change, we are embracing lean to drive work that is valuable.

If you did not get the opportunity to join us yesterday, or if you simply wish to reference the video, please see the below link for a recording of the event published to our OutageBuzz YouTube channel:

As we reflect on the spring and look ahead to the fall, allow me to remind us all of the actions we laid out to help us remain focused on what is most important for success right now.

• Maintain daily focus and confidence. You know the playbook we have for COVID-19 management and normal fulfillment operations … we expect this will be just important in the fall as it was in the spring. Keep your focus on execution, specifically safety and quality excellence, which matter now more now than ever with a stretched healthcare system and customers with limited cash investments.

• Communicate through the chain of command in place. Continue to elevate any concerns that arise to get help. Your APM leadership and the entire corporate organization is actively working with our various partners – GE, FieldCore, Customers, Labor, and more – to answer your questions and clear your paths, and to make your sites safe places.

• Lead yourself and your teams. This is a daily evolving challenge; our resilience and discipline is being tested. Use your leadership toolbox – CBS, HOP, Leadership tools – to have meaningful, personal conversations.

Finally, I want to close with the Customer voice.

“The APM millwrights are very dedicated, hard workers with attention to standards.” ~Duke

“I was very satisfied with GE / APM this outage. … From a work stand point all went well. We had no safety events which is always key to success. … There was coaching involved by all parties as it was not normal circumstances and everyone had to get used to the new way for this outage. … The craft through APM is very skilled and knowledgeable. The leadership team that was there through the Superintendent and Foremen was excellent. The Keymen that were on this job had vast knowledge on the unit as most had been here for previous outages. … Hands down the 2 biggest things that GE could do to bring more value to the site is, lower costs and repeatability of personnel. With the same repeatability of personnel you gain so many efficiencies during the pre outage phases which is greatly important to keeping the costs lower. So I would rank the consistent personnel to site each outage would be the biggest asset to any sites outage cost savings and efficiencies to gain. … All in all from my stand point personnel repeatability is your biggest value in many ways.”  ~Dominion

“Outage execution was great … we had a few bumps along the way but it was how the team came together, took accountability on both sides (NRG and GE) and addressed the issues all while navigating COVID-19. … we should celebrate this success especially after our below average performance in 2019 but we can’t be complacent or convince ourselves that our work is done.” ~NRG

Thanks again for all you do to make our APM successful!

—Jake