Dennis Spring holds the title as the Trades Coordinator for Roper St. Francis Healthcare Downtown Charleston, South Carolina. His responsibilities include coordinating and supervising the hospital’s buildings and equipment maintenance schedules, responding to urgent maintenance calls, and participation with the creation of emergency preparedness plans. In order to ensure that the hospital maintains operation without interruption, it is necessary that Dennis eliminates all preventable and predictable downtime. Over the years, Transworld’s services have provided the necessary solutions needed for Dennis Spring to make that possible by implementing proactive verse reactive maintenance. Additional benefits from these services include the ability to track repairs and total cost of ownership, and dramatically decrease the cost of maintenance and spare parts.
“Transworld’s services have given me the ability to be confident knowing that my equipment is dependable and knowing that we have a chance of catching something that has the potential to interrupt our power. It has also lessened my manpower and labor hours because now we are prepared when we go in and do assessments. We know the newest codes and we know the newest violations. Every hospital has a joint commission inspection every 3 years that is required for safety and quality standards; I passed with flying colors this past year. A good example of the benefits and true value of this service can be shown directly to the last time we tested our generator breaker. When we disassembled the breaker, we discovered that one of my arrestors had broken free and was sitting loose. Technically without that testing, I could have had one of my generators not be able to close a breaker and eventually I would have lost power to my hospital. In the past two years, I have never lost a breaker and I have never lost the ability to power my hospital.
These services would be beneficial to all markets, not just healthcare. We are under a different standard because of DHEC and the dependability of being a hospital but with schools and any industrial or commercial building; you’re going to have a dependability that your system works. I could see this service being valuable to everyone.”
Read the full interview with Dennis Spring to learn more about his personal experience with Transworld.
Can you please describe your relationship with Transworld?
Transworld was already servicing our hospital when I took over about 2-2.5 years ago. When I joined the hospital, I was able to meet the guys and sit down with Transworld’s staff. They told me the services they had been giving us and discussed the direction we should go.
What are some of the benefits that Transworld’s services have provided?
One important thing that has been instrumental for me is that Transworld has been able to give me a schedule and stick to it tightly. They also have been able to change their schedule which is crucial as a hospital and having to go from our day shift to night shift and they have done it easily! They use color graphs with every panel, every hot zones, and every issue. They have also broken the testing down into sections, instead of doing one bulk year testing and 2 lite years; we now have distributed the testing over three years. This has helped me with the financing to help me to pay for the testing and shown me the benefits of this new scheduling. For example, last time we tested our generator breaker, we disassemble it and one of my arrestors had broken free. It was sitting loose in there, so technically without that testing I could have had one of my generators not be able to close a breaker and eventually I would have lost power to my hospital.
Do you think there are any direct competitors to Transworld’s services?
I have seen other companies that offer similar services. I have many professionals in the industry that I have asked for their interpretations of various companies. For example, our engineering consultant, and HR Allen have both highly recommended Transworld. We also use the same breaker testing company as Transworld so we have used Transworld countless times with load banking and other breaker services. I know that working with Transworld is so easy. Morgan, Steve and the all the guys help make it a great company to work with.
What is a benefit that Transworld’s service has directly impacted your daily operations?
Transworld’s services have given me the ability to be confident in knowing that my equipment is dependable and knowing that we are going to catch any potential hazards before they become an issue. You can’t always guarantee that you will catch everything but it has be able to show me and pinpoint areas that I need to work on so then I can get it corrected before it turns into an issues. This allows me to have dependability when I go home at night that my hospital is going to work.
Over the years, we have identified a lot issues through the preventative testing. The direct impact it has is hard to measure but in the past two years, I have never lost a breaker, I have never lost the ability to power my hospital. It has also lessened my manpower and labor hours because now we are prepared when we go in and do assessments. We know the newest codes and we know the newest violations. All hospitals have a joint commission inspection every 3 years that is required for safety and quality standards and I passed with flying colors this past year. Everything that would be found as a violation in the past with breaker panels, panels boards etc. had already been recognized by Transworld’s team and allowed me to pass without a single violation.
Another huge benefit is the dependability and knowing that you have a chance of catching something that has a chance of interrupting our power. Knowing that your systems are going to work, knowing that they’ll switch properly and they’ll function correctly but then also the added benefit like I said is that when they do this inspection that you know that you’re stuff is going to be labeled, it’s going to be identified, it’s going to be clean, and it’s going to be in code knowing to where you not going to get any of these violations and you’re going to have to scramble and try to correct because of that inspection.
Do you think this service is beneficial to all markets, or just healthcare?
These services would be beneficial to all markets, not just healthcare. We are under a different standard because of DHEC and the dependability of being a hospital but with schools and any industrial or commercial building; you’re going to have a dependability that your system works. You’re not going to be there at one or two in the morning trying to get your systems back up with chillers, coolers, etc. I could see this service being valuable to everyone.
Did you find NFPA70E qualification training we hosted beneficial?
I attended the NFPA 70E qualification training this past July and it brought me up to the most recent codes and showed me where I need to go for the future. Since then we have bought every technician an arc uniform that they wear 24/7 and our bags with arc flash coveralls are rated and comply with all the standards. We had arc labeling from DWG so our panels were already identified but it better informed me about how we can be safer with our lock out tag out and other safety regulations. All my technicians are safer because of me attending the training and becoming more informed.
Any advice on how we can better our services for our customers?
It would be hard for me to come up with something to make Transworld better. Everyone is already 24/7 reachable, they are indispensable; I call them and they are here. They know that when we need them; we really need them! They have always shown up in an instant and dropped whatever they are doing to make sure I get back up.
