The Utilities Service Alliance (USA) and STARS Alliance Valve Team recently joined Palo Verde Plant Engineering to host a one-day Knowledge Transfer, Mentoring and Succession Planning Workshop for Motor Operated Valve (MOV) Engineers. A total of 15 attendees from peer plants, industry members and Palo Verde gathered for the session at STARS Headquarters in Goodyear, Ariz.

Palo Verde Senior Vice President of Site Operations Bob Bement welcomed attendees to the workshop and provided his thoughts about MOVs and their contribution to Operational Focus. MOVs are a key element to excellence by providing operations with reliable components that meet all plant operational conditions, he shared. Additionally, STARS Executive Director Steve Coppock provided an overview of the STARS Alliance and Goodyear facility.

Workshop topics included qualification and training requirements, considerations for knowledge transfer and mentoring, qualification versus proficiency and industry MOV training resources. The workshop provided an excellent opportunity for networking, continues improvement, knowledge sharing and learnings from self-assessments.

USA / STARS Valve Team Manager Tim Scoggins explained, “The MOV program is one of the more complex programs in the industry, and for most plants it takes four to five years for a new MOV engineer to become proficient in all aspects of the program.”

Among the 18 plants in the USA / STARS Valve Team, there are 12 plants that have new MOV engineers. This benchmarking and workshop session allowed everyone to share best practices, lessons learned and address upcoming challenges and needs at plants.

”The MOV knowledge transfer session was incredibly beneficial in learning the qualification standards other plants have in relation to what we have,” noted Darrell Heckel, program engineer, Callaway. “Another takeaway is knowing there are MOV training courses available to us.”

Joseph Tufano, AOV / backup MOV engineer, Indian Point, added “The USA / STARS valve teams meeting was an excellent opportunity to gain insights on the different training and qualification practices used throughout the industry, and to learn valve program practices at other sites that can be used to improve our own valve programs.”

Sean Howell, MOV engineer, Fermi 2, concurred and shared, “Collaborating with other new MOV program owners provided insights to best practices on MOV ownership transfer as well as strategies to improve the program. Having networking groups like USA / STARS helps reduce the stress of taking ownership of a program that has numerous facets such as an MOV program.”