Power Engineering - Colectric joins Construction Industry Institute

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., May 23, 2002 -- Colectric Partners Inc., a national, non-profit organization of publicly owned utilities, announced this week that it has been granted membership into the Construction Industry Institute (CII), a construction industry research organization.

CII's mission is to bring companies and contractors together to find better ways of planning and executing capital construction projects. CII focuses its efforts on six key areas: research, implementation, education, benchmarking, breakthrough and globalization of best practices and evaluating proposed best practices.

This is the first time that state and municipal public utilities have engaged with CII, and the relationship is expected to create enhanced performance benefits for Colectric's utilities as well as engineering-procurement-construction (EPC) contractors who are implementing those capital facilities projects.
Colectric will be involved in more than $1.5 billion in capital facilities construction projects for its constituents over the next five years. Colectric expects to enhance the overall performance of those projects by applying CII's proven best practices models.

"CII has developed the industry's most comprehensive and effective collection of best practices. That knowledge base will enhance our pre-project planning, safety, constructability and project delivery performance for all of our upcoming projects," according to Bob Alder, Colectric's president. "In addition to just being good business, this relationship translates into a competitive advantage for Colectric. We know that by us choosing to use, and working with those contractors who are also using, CII best practices - Colectric, and its utilities, will save time and money."

"From CII's perspective, we are delighted to have Colectric as a new member because they will add a public power dimension to our portfolio of construction industry research projects," according to CII associate director Ned Givens. "In addition, this CII membership will provide Colectric access to CII's 19 years worth of research on capital facility delivery process best practices."

The bidding process for major utility construction projects often requires engineering-procurement-construction companies to invest up to $250,000 worth of work to fully define the project execution plan and therefore understand the risks. Through implementing CII's best practices, Colectric's utilities will be able to better plan, scope and implement their projects. In turn, this improvement will allow contractors to submit competitive bids on projects that they know how to best accomplish, as a result of their adoption of CII best practices. CII benchmarking data indicates that the single most important factor influencing a contractor's ability to provide optimal project schedule, cost, safety and overall performance is if the company owner was a CII member.

CII's contractor membership roster includes nearly 50 of the nation's top engineering-procurement-construction companies and an almost equal number of owners, all of whom have been involved in creating, testing and adopting CII capital facilities construction best practices that produce documented cost savings for both contractors and owners.

About Colectric Partners
Headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla., Colectric Partners is a member-owned collaborative business that helps America's public power industry maximize their collective buying power and leverage best practices models while minimizing costs and reducing financial risks.

Originally called Power Partners and founded in 2001 by four charter members (JEA, Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia, Santee Cooper and Nebraska Public Power District), the company provides unprecedented assistance, information and purchasing leverage related to the development, project management, operations and maintenance areas of their electric generation, transmission, distribution, gas and infrastructure facilities.

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