Whitewater Valley Gives Boost to Warehouse Power Quality
Whitewater Valley REMC Offers Expert Examination
of Facility to Find and Correct Wiring Problems
Terry Ferrell, Maintenance Supervisor of the Dot
Foods Cambridge City Distribution Center, had a power problem affecting almost
all aspects of the plant and its nearly 200 employees. Dot Foods is one of the
largest food re-distributors in the United States, and power issues in Cambridge
City could potentially affect food distribution throughout much of the Midwest.
“We’d had a lot of lightning strikes, and our power fluctuations were of great
concern, particularly if those issues were to ever affect our refrigeration and
freezer units. We have some units that must be kept at near-zero, and those need
to be working at top efficiency at all times.” On top of this, fire alarm
systems and security systems kept losing power.
Ferrell contacted Account Manager Mike Walker of
Hoosier Energy. “He said they’d send an electrician right over to check out the
plant, and that they’d cover the cost,” said Ferrell. “I was pleased to get this
sort of response after a single conversation.”
Walker contacted Boyd Huff, CEO of the Whitewater
Valley REMC. Boyd recalled, “Mike [Walker] and I have worked very closely
through the years, and he came to me as soon as he was aware of the problem. Dot
Foods is important to us and I knew we wanted to get on this right away. Mike
suggested we send electrician Bob Butterfield.” Boyd also recalled Butterfield
had given a demonstration at the REMC facilities the previous spring. “He’s
local, which is how we like to assign these whenever possible, and he clearly
had the experience. Whitewater Valley REMC hadn’t used him before, but Mike knew
Bob’s work and outstanding reputation, and we agreed he was a good fit. We felt
good about the decision to pass this along to him.”
Engineer Bob Butterfield of Butterfield Power
Quality, called Ferrell at Dot Foods and arrived the next morning. Butterfield
operates out of Shelbyville, Indiana, and has over 40 years experience tracking
power issues for utility companies, with a specialty of diagnosing power issues
at corporate facilities. “Power and electrical problems can affect all aspects
of a manufacturer’s business, from data servers to phone systems to production,
and security. Electrical grounding issues are rarely contained to one segment of
operations,” explained Butterfield. “The good news is that most problems of this
sort are relatively easy to diagnose and track
down.”
Butterfield used power quality reading instruments,
measured various resistances, and then checked the grounding of the wires to
confirm it met national electric code standards. He also performed temperature
checks to find potential “hot spots,” infamous for causing problems with
electrical equipment. Ferrell recalled, “He measured several grounding spots and
found two that were in dire need of correcting.”
In this case, several of Dot’s machines had been
improperly grounded when they were connected to the system. “We see this sort of
thing a lot. The installation wasn’t up to code. There’s a wide variety of
reasons why this might happen that in no way reflects negligence on the plant’s
part. Fortunately, the maintenance supervisor recognized he had a significant
problem and took action to correct it.”
Ferrell reiterated, “I was impressed that Whitewater
Valley REMC offered to cover the cost of sending an engineer out to our site,
that it happened quickly and with great efficiency. It tells me that they
consider Dot Foods a priority customer and that this is a valuable partnership
to them.” Boyd stressed, “Whitewater Valley REMC considers it a priority to
maintain the best relationship possible with both our residential customers and
our key accounts. This was a win-win for everyone involved.”
The Dot Foods issue was the first time Whitewater
Valley REMC had assigned contractor Bob Butterfield to a case, but it would not
be the last. Less than a month later, during the phone interview for this
write-up, Butterfield answered, “I’m currently talking to you from the
facilities of customer number two."