Long Beach Utilities Elevates Training and Advances OQ Program

Long Beach Utilities provides natural gas service to approximately 500,000 residents and businesses in the cities of Long Beach and Signal Hill. Delivered through over 1,800 miles of gas pipelines, its natural gas is safely provided to homes to keep residents warm in the winter, cook their food, heat their water in showers and baths, and dry clothes. As the citizens of Long Beach are also the owners of its gas utility, Long Beach Utilities revenues provide not only its gas services and maintenance of its pipeline system but also are used to help pay for vital community services such as police, fire, parks, and library services.

The Challenge: Modernizing the OQ Program

Three primary objectives drove Long Beach Utilities’ decision to upgrade the technology associated with its operator qualification (OQ) program. It wanted to:

• Reduce requalification intervals
  Long Beach Utilities’ policy had been to requalify its pipeline personnel every five years, but the utility wanted to move to the current industry standard three-year interval. As part of a municipality, the organization constantly faces personnel shortages. It realized that improved technology and third-party support would be needed to accomplish the additional documentation that would be required to achieve shorter intervals.
• Expand the identified task list
  Long Beach Utilities wanted to ensure that task selection for their entire pipeline operation was comprehensive and aligned with industry standards.
• Improve overall accessibility and documentation of qualifications and training
  Long Beach Utilities previously relied extensively on in-field training, with minimal documentation. The organization planned to introduce more formal training and wanted technology that would support the delivery, tracking, and documentation of the expanded program, as well as retain the flexibility to provide in-field training with improved documentation.

Long Beach Utilities solicited bidders to provide third-party support and technology for its OQ program to help meet these objectives. Bidders were evaluated, interviewed, and selected by a team of subject matter experts (SMEs), supervisors, and management. The organization was looking for access to OQ expertise on a national level, comprehensive qualification document management, and a vetted system with national credibility. Long Beach Utilities found these qualities in Veriforce.

The Solution: Forging a Key Partnership for Enhanced Expertise

Key factors in the selection of Veriforce included Veriforce’s involvement in the development and maintenance of a Common Covered Task (CCT) list used among many of its operator clients, as well as the capabilities of the company’s software, VeriSource, to support the demands of Long Beach Utilities’ enhanced qualification program. And VeriSource, supplemented by Long Beach Utilities internal practices, would allow it to present a detailed account of the training provided to its employees.

Today, Long Beach Utilities uses VeriSource OQ Compliance Management to administer over 1,000 individual qualifications.

While Long Beach Utilities is still relatively new to using VeriSource, they’ve found the system to be an accessible and understandable repository of data to support the Long Beach Utilities OQ Program that serves the organization’s current needs well. Immediate benefits have included the ability to track qualifications by job title and individual, ensure completeness of records associated with qualifications, and quickly audit qualifications. Combined with the organization’s robust mobile investments, Pipeline Supervisors and Inspectors can now review personnel qualifications in the field. Long Beach Utilities has been very pleased with the rigor of Veriforce’s QA/QC of OQ documents.

A Long Beach Utilities Gas Pipeline Compliance Officer, says: “We took two steps that we would recommend to all Veriforce clients. We adapted the CCTs (Common Covered Tasks) to the unique characteristics of our system and procedures, and we performed extensive evaluator training prior to start-up of qualifications.”

The process of adapting the CCTs required Long Beach Utilities to review operations practices and abnormal operating conditions (AOC) responses. This took place in the context of an overall review of multiple compliance-related programs and plans.

“The opportunity to integrate our Operations and Maintenance Manual revision with OQ and allowing them to cross-inform each program’s contents is yielding additional improvements to both.”

On the evaluator training front, Long Beach Utilities took the initiative to administer two on-site internal evaluator training sessions, conducted by Veriforce staff, and brought in all crew chief foremen and inspectors to participate. Among the benefits of this training, it provided attendees a better understanding of the “big picture” – with background on the OQ Rule and its evolution and some perspective on industry standards – and helped create greater awareness of OQ compliance responsibilities. Long Beach Utilities built on the Veriforce training with two weeks of dedicated evaluator training and program development for those selected to be evaluators, ensuring they were well-prepared to deliver the new classroom training for pipeline crews.

“These steps allowed us to present a professional, unique, well-thought-out qualification process to our candidates, enhanced personnel buy-in, and contributed to the overall success of the new program.”

The Results: Elevating Safety, Compliance, and Team Spirit

Beyond meeting the objectives stated in its bid request, Long Beach Utilities has experienced added benefits from working with Veriforce to improve OQ compliance management, namely: helping to standardize operations, supporting increased camaraderie among the field crews, helping to instill a culture of continuous improvement, and bridging communication gaps between divisions within the organization.

Ready to ramp up and streamline your OQ program? Contact our OQ experts today.