Climbers' Corner • Tree Academy
Monday • Tuesday • Wednesday
Vegetation Benchmarking from an End User Perspective
Summary
Benchmarking
has been described as a systematic process of searching for best practices,
innovative ideas and highly effective operating procedures that lead to
superior performance. Utilities have participated in numerous vegetation
management benchmarking efforts over the past 20 years with varying results.
Properly and meaningfully done, benchmarking of utility VM programs requires a
commitment of time and effort. The common comparative analysis benchmarking is
only one of three fundamental types of benchmarking. The others are process
benchmarking and operational reviews. The end-user experience with process
benchmarking will be examined along with data normalization challenges.
Conference Proceedings Documents
Presenters
Paul Appelt is the president
of ECI, a consulting company specializing in helping utility companies develop
improved vegetation management strategies and effective operations through
benchmarking, research and special studies. His education and experience
includes a BS in Forestry and 37 years of experience in commercial, municipal
and utility arboriculture.
Dave Van Bossuyt, ECI senior
project manager, holds a BS and MS in Forestry. For over 30 years at Portland
General Electric he was responsible for a broad range of operations including
vegetation, fleet, contract and asset management, line operations, the PUC
liaison office and benchmarking. Dave worked 10 years for the USFS and is a UAA
past president.
Climbers' Corner • Tree Academy
Monday • Tuesday • Wednesday