Vegetation Management Contracting Assessments

With the threat of wildfires imminent in the driest regions of the Western United States, the performance of field personnel has become a top utility priority. Ensuring all enhanced vegetation management contractors are assessed for adherence to stringent safety, quality and readiness criteria, prior to deployment, is critical to advancing our client’s sustainability and reliability goals.

 

As a trusted utility advisor, TRC developed and implemented new processes and systems to ensure contractors are ready to be effective in the field when walking tree lines and identifying vegetation hazards and environmental concerns, based on establish criteria.

 

Our Solutions

TRC’s Contractor Evaluation System screens and trains contractors, prior to deployment into their work area. It features two unique solutions designed to determine skills competency:

 

1. Written assessment giving contractors the opportunity to explain their skills and demonstrate their work knowledge.

 

2. Simulated field assessment on staged training site with vegetation and variable field attributes.

 

TRC delivers holistic vegetation management program solutions to this client. Our support for the EVM program provides consistent, reliable and accurate assessment and execution for both vegetation and wood management activities. Our programmatic approach contributes to the utility’s overall objective of mitigating fire risks for the utility, its customers and local communities.

 

Benefits

This system sets a new standard of performance expectations for field contracting and will yield benefits for years to come.

 

Systematically assessing the knowledge and experience of the workforce leads to more productive work, increased accuracy in data collection, improved technical analyses and ultimately a more complete appraisal of field conditions and environmental concerns.

 

By implementing the contractor assessment program, specifically designed for the client’s enhanced vegetation management, the utility has improved work quality and ensured that its contract resources are knowledgeable and experienced.

 

Moving forward, all enhanced vegetation management contractors working for the utility will possess relevant experience and, at the utmost priority, the wherewithal to perform vegetation management tasks in the safest way possible for all stakeholders involved.