POWERGRAMS

PG_7_20_final

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INNOVATION A pair of Alabama Power employee ideas are among the six overall winners in the SO Safe competition. Five ideas were selected by employee pairwise votes and one by an executive review panel: • "I Didn't Know That Could Happen" by Eufaula Garage Fleet Specialist Franklin McKee. • "Lone Worker Protection" by Clanton Power Delivery-Distribution Engineering Supervisor Kim Williams, Transmission Customer Service Supervisor Emily Boles, Clanton Market Specialist Jane Conradi, Clanton Engineer Tim Hall, Mobile Division Office Engineer Melissa Hanby and Southern Division Office Area Investigator Erin Moore. • "SO Safe Rewards" by Julia Green and Natalie Mills of Southern Company Services. • "Upgrade the Generation Clearance and Tagging Process to Electronic Process Using Bar Code Readers" by Gordon Henley of SCS (selected by executive panel). • "Brighten Up the Night" by Ulysses Roberts of Georgia Power. • "FitBit Emergency Device for Lone Workers" by Danny Schlief and Joseph Brownlee of Gulf Power. Executives from across the Southern Company system will work with idea submitters and their teams to research, develop and implement their ideas to help Southern Company achieve Target Zero. "I'm just happy to know that I submitted an idea that, if implemented, could save someone unnecessary grief," said McKee. "Safety is the most important part of our job and our lives. Every safety meeting that we have in Fleet, we always recite Mr. Barry's statement. I really believe in that and think if everyone has that embedded in their minds, we can achieve Target Zero." The winning SO Safe ideas will be profiled in a video series to appear on Southern Today online. "By incentivizing a safety-conscious attitude, 'So Safe Rewards' encourages employees to think about and take action to achieve the company's goal of Target Zero," said Green, an Environmental Strategy Engineer at Alabama Power Corporate Headquarters. For implementation purposes, two of the winning ideas – "Lone Worker Protection" and "Fitbit Emergency Device for Lone Workers" – will be combined. "The Lone Worker Protection team is thrilled to be selected one of the Top 5 winners," said Williams. "We are looking forward to the next phase of SO Safe, putting our idea into action. We believe our project will have a positive impact on a large number of employees who perform work alone every day." The executive review panel of Kim Greene, Chris Womack, Stan Connally and Larry Monroe also selected five honorable mention winners. They all shared a common theme – embracing technology and enabling information to enhance the safety culture across the system. Leslie Sibert, vice president of distribution at Georgia Power, will work with all of these teams to develop a comprehensive safety technology strategy. The five honorable mentions are: • "At Your Fingertips: Data Integration for Generation ID Tags (DIGIT)" by Miller Steam Plant Engineer Hunter Davis, GSC Commercial and Industrial Support Market Specialist Scott Bishop and Gorgas Steam Plant Maintenance Specialist Judd Hamilton, and Donald Simmons (SCS), Molly Schaefer (GPC), Alex Parnell (GPC), Christopher Savage (SCS), Tasha Hardegree (SCS), James Hancock (GPC) and Thomas Davis III (GPC). • "Mobile/Web Application for Safe Data Collection in the Field – Capture Safety Concerns with Your Phone" by Shawn Weekly, Walter Appling, Brian Jeffcoat and Robert Stoves of SCS at Alabama Power Corporate Headquarters. • "A SO Safe App That Works SO Well" by Freddie Carmichael and La'Fred Gibbons of GPC. • "Smartner – Your Interactive Partner to the Past and Future at Your Fingertips" by Edgar Mayora and Michael Stojak of Gulf Power. • "GO Safe – Smartphone App for SO Users" by Timi Price of SCS at Inverness Office Park. The SO Safe challenge sought innovative ideas from all Southern Company employees to achieve Target Zero by implementing a new technology or process or just doing things differently. Employee votes selected 25 ideas to enter into an expert review. The panel of safety experts and employees from across the system selected 12 ideas, which then faced off in pairwise voting. Pairwise voting selected five of the six winners and the executive review panel chose the sixth. More than 900 ideas were submitted from 680 teams and employees. Employees were highly engaged, sharing more than 3,600 comments and placing almost 14,000 votes during the first phases and viewing more than 50,000 idea pairs in the pairwise phase. To view all ideas and review the challenge activity, visit SO Safe. SO Safe competition generates hundreds of ideas, five winners Above, Moore, Williams and Conradi were part of the team that won for "Lone Worker Protection" and at right, McKee's "I Didn't Know That Could Happen" submission was a SO Safe top prize winner. "There can be no operating condition which justifies our employees taking the slightest chance in performing their work. We want them always to take the safe way, even though our service may suffer thereby, or our cost be increased." - Former Alabama Power President James M. Barry, namesake of the steam plant in Mobile. 7

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