Customers Case Studies

Background

Cleco Corporation is an energy services company based in central Louisiana. With a history going back nearly 70 years it has become a regional energy services provider and has perfected the basics of a successful electric utility—developing a reputation for reliable service and a focus on the customer.

Cleco has two primary businesses: Cleco Power LLC, an electric utility, and Cleco Midstream Resources LLC, a wholesale energy business. It is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

Its electric utility serves more than 261,000 residential and commercial customers across Louisiana, and owns and manages about 11,000 miles of distribution circuits and 1,250 miles of transmission lines. Cleco's three regulated generating facilities have a total combined capacity of 2,050 megawatts.

Cleco Corporation has more than 1,200 employees.

Environmental health and safety has always been an important part of Cleco's business strategy. The company believes in doing more than generating power—helping protect and conserve the environmental health of the communities in which it operates and being a good steward of Louisiana's natural resources has made them a leader in environmental conservation. At its facilities the health and safety focus is on "zero injuries" among employees.

Challenge

Lead Safety Specialist Bryan Phillips is a 30-year veteran of the company and has been in the Cleco Safety Department since 1996. In the mid-1990's Cleco managers were saddled with maintaining and updating huge sets of MSDS books at each company location. One person at each facility was designated with this responsibility in addition to their regular duties, and there were several other people working on the MSDS files at the corporate Safety Department. At each power plant three to four complete sets of MSDS books needed constant updating and pages had to be inserted correctly and in a timely fashion.

Phillips recalls the problem was there was no way to know whether what was in the books was the latest information. Also, the constant need to maintain and update the books was also time-consuming for the staff assigned to those tasks.

Solution

Cleco managers recognized the benefits of outsourcing their HazMat compliance program to 3E Company when they purchased a comprehensive Hazcom Plan project, which included 3E MSDS On Demand®, 3E Poison and 3E Spill, all from the 3E OnCall platform. The company later adopted 3E Online - MSDS.

Cleco employees liked the responsiveness of the 3E Company. "I believe everyone was satisfied with the level of service we received," Phillips said. "3E took the burden of managing this process and delivered information when we needed it. Like many companies, we tried to manage our MSDS program in-house, but we could not do it as well as 3E Company."

Phillips said Cleco line mechanics out in the field found the program useful. "They use chemicals at all hours of the day and night," he said. "If there is an accident or incident involving chemicals, it's almost impossible to get an MSDS to them onsite. They all post the 3E Oncall 800 number in their trucks now. If there is an exposure to a chemical or chemicals, 3E specialists can fax whatever information is needed to the emergency personnel who will be treating them at their local hospital. The relevant information would be at the hospital before the patient arrives."

Results

Phillips estimates it would take at least three full time employees to do the work 3E does for Cleco. "It's much more cost effective for 3E to manage everything," he says. "We were doing a marginal job at best, and we just don't have the manpower to devote to what was a never-ending job."

The fact that he is no longer hearing about problems at outlying facilities speaks volumes for 3E's products and services, Phillips said. He credits 3E's online training programs for reducing the number of incidents he has to deal with personally. "Our safety teams at the power plants are efficient at using 3E's online services.

"At monthly safety meetings, employees review an MSDS to share with their colleagues. They learn how responsive the system is and when an emergency does occur, they are confident that 3E will be there for them with the most relevant and up-to-date information."



Location:  Pineville, Louisiana
3E Services: 3E Online, 3E MSDS On Demand, 3E Spill, 3E Poison & Exposure
Industry/Market: Energy Services
Company Web Site:  http://www.cleco.com