IRWIN Industries named '2008 Supplier of the Year' by Arizona Public Service (APS)

Arizona Public Service (APS), a utility which services more than a million customers in 11 of Arizona's 15 counties, has named IRWIN Industries as its Supplier of the Year for its Four Corners Power Plant in Farmington, NM. Chosen from a large pool of vendors that supply materials and services, IRWIN was recognized for its outstanding performance and its contribution to the five-unit plant. Since 2000, IRWIN has performed plant capital and overhaul & maintenance projects on all five units.

In January 2008, IRWIN successfully completed a 40-day overhaul on Unit 1, which involved a lower rear wall panel replacement, front screen tube replacement, and flash tank replacement. Additionally, a 100-day overhaul on Unit 5 was completed in March of the same year and included the lower V-bottom panel and header replacement projects, second stage superheat bundle replacement, pendant reheat bundle replacement, reheat outlet header replacement project, and coal pipe replacement project. IRWIN's weld acceptance rate on this project was more than 99 percent on the 9,000 welds completed on Unit 5. IRWIN completed the 2008 projects at the plant ahead of schedule and within budget.

"IRWIN brings many attributes to the projects they perform at Four Corners," says Karla Erickson, APS's Supply Chain Manager, "but their commitment to safety, job performance, quality, and on time performance are at the top of the list. Their management team is committed not only IRWIN's values but to the plant's values as well. They've become a very integrated part of our APS team because of the very talented and productive group of skilled employees they bring to each project. IRWIN Industries developed a training program called IRWIN University where they train their leadership and craft employees, ensuring a highly skilled workforce that understands IRWIN's high quality standards."

Says Mike Howell, IRWIN's Manager of Power Plant Services West: "Our success at APS is also due to the cooperation, communication and hard work of every employee onsite and the support staff in the office. Completing an assignment like the one on Unit 5 is a group effort," he continues, "not only among our Project Managers at the site, but also between the many people involved in bidding, scheduling and seeing the project through from a safety and quality perspective."

IRWIN followed up the Four Corners outage with another assignment at the same plant this spring. Project Manager Ray Flores and his group performed ID fan and scrubber modification work in early March. IRWIN will begin a new job at the plant in January 2010.

IRWIN Industries President Randy Renny and Business Development Representative Joe Cascia joined Howell at an APS awards banquet in Phoenix on May 21st to accept the "Supplier of the Year" award on behalf of everyone at IRWIN Industries.

printer-friendly version of this page