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In Noblesville, Indiana, APM Gas Power mobilized to respond to an unplanned outage on August 14, 2023. They completed almost 10,000 manhours between their start date in August and their demobilization on December 21, 2023! They also completed multiple scopes of work with zero recordable injuries or quality escapes!

Due to compressor damage in a gas turbine unit, APM Gas Power quickly mobilized in a 6F forced outage. Impressively, they managed to gather a crew of eight led by APM Superintendent, Barry Burroughs, coordinate tooling, complete the site’s pre-arrival safety requirements, and a be onsite on August 14th after being contacted less than a week before, on August 9th. A huge kudos to our APM Operations Program Coordinator, Sarah Baker for her support in getting the team compliant with site safety requirements and ensuring safe travel to make it to site on time! This is by no means a small achievement, yet our APM teams often complete such feats of efficiency and coordination on numerous emergent outage requests.

Speaking of efficiency, this crew proved their competence and resourcefulness by taking on multiple scopes of work to maximize their time on site to be useful to the customer. After taking apart the 6F forced outage unit, the crew worked on a 6F load gear rebuild and alignment for a secondary unit while waiting for parts. When they finished the secondary unit, the team returned to the original forced outage unit to rebuild it with the necessary parts. In early December, APM Superintendent, Jason Cramer led a night shift crew of eight to aid the team onsite, resulting in a total of two crews and 18 APM personnel on this job!

A valuable STOP moment occurred on December 14th while Matt Kunzelman, APM Gas Power Operations Division Leader, was onsite visiting the nightshift. While in discussion, the Superintendent requested documentation from engineering for the arrangement of gas lines to ensure proper gasket size and flow of gas. Right after the information was provided, a foreman came in to initiate a STOP moment of his own to verify the same information as the superintendent. The quality mindset on site was so in sync that the team was able to have a productive discussion and ensure the highest quality work on an unfamiliar unit (6FA.01).

The APM team’s obvious commitment to quality work through their questioning attitude facilitated the teamwork and collaborative relationship between the APM team and the Duke Energy employees. This strong relationship allows for a productive environment and the leanest possible outage. Since they work together so well, both teams can compromise, make commitments, and have effective critical conversations more often. Between the personal request for Dayshift Superintendent, Barry Burroughs and the Duke Energy team’s care and assistance with the conditions of the crew’s work environment, morale was high, and the atmosphere felt welcoming and rewarding.

We’d like to show our appreciation towards the Dayshift Foreman and SME, Andrew Carlisle and the Nightshift Foreman and SME, Brandon Quick for their extra set of expertise and function as true Subject Matter Experts. Beyond their help with mechanical expertise, they were 100% involved with the team, ready to jump in and worked well into breaks to make sure everybody got back and got the rest they need. They were essential to have on the team and were dependable to act as another leader onsite.

We’d also like to recognize our APM Superintendents, Barry Burroughs and Jason Cramer for answering the call and leading another successful outage with safety and quality as the top priorities! We are proud of all our APM Superintendents for spearheading the company operations and making the personal sacrifices to work on long outages away from home.