Consulting

We help organizations identify and capitalize on opportunities within their UVM program. With our industry knowledge and experience, we can examine your organization and its operations, help focus your strengths, drive your potential, and develop innovative solutions to your toughest challenges.

Our consulting division is organized into three primary service areas:

Strategy + Organizational Development

CNUC combines in-depth industry knowledge, rigorous analysis, and insight to address your organization’s most robust, complex challenges. We assist in defining organizational objectives, developing policies and plans to achieve those objectives, and then allocating resources to implement those plans.

Here’s How We Help

Strategic Planning: We assist you in identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to your organization. We articulate where the organization is going and what actions are needed to maximize program effectiveness.

Risk + Compliance Consultation: All organizations must uphold compliance with laws and regulations. CNUC has in-depth knowledge of UVM related laws and regulations so we are positioned to ensure your program is meeting regulatory requirements. From supporting your fire or storm hardening efforts to the review or creation of a Transmission Vegetation Management Program (TVMP), CNUC brings its detailed knowledge of the regulatory environment to assist your program.

Stewardship Gap Analysis: We are more than just vegetation managers; we are stewards. In fact, our President Derek Vannice is an active participant and serves as Chair of the Right-of-Way Stewardship Council (ROWSC). The ROWSC offers a Stewardship Accreditation Program that provides an opportunity to show commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainability to your consumers (members), management, and the industry as a whole. The accreditation program contains 10 principles and 30 criteria as performance indicators. A gap analysis can help you determine if your organization is ready to apply for accreditation or identify the steps to prepare.

Program Review: Sparked by a specific challenge, we use our program review framework to address and improve operational efficacy and quality. Below are some examples of the types of questions that may be explored in a program review, depending on the focus.

  • What's our ideal cycle length?
  • What’s the optimal program budget?
  • How do we increase productivity?
  • Are there production bottlenecks and, if so, how can they be overcome?
  • Are our specifications appropriate for our system?
  • Are we communicating effectively with our customers about UVM?

Project Management

  • LiDAR-based field inspections or ground-truthing
  • Annual transmission inspections for FAC-003 compliance
  • Implement new field and reporting software
  • Asset inventory and tagging
  • Tree inventories
  • Sample studies
  • Workload assessments
  • Turn-key vegetation management services
  • Site evaluations
  • Customer notification and education
  • Advanced tree risk assessments
  • UVM data analytics and reporting

Training + Summits

CNUC offers training services to support your organization’s goals, increase staff knowledge and assist with user adoption to speed up project rollout for new processes. We provide individual or small-group training sessions, partial or full-day workshops or as a part of another meeting or conference. Additionally, CNUC can facilitate a meeting, summit or workshop. Here are some trainings we offer.

  • FAC-003
  • Imminent threat procedures
  • UVM pre-planning
  • Customer service
  • Data collection and reporting
  • Tree risk assessment
  • Environmental stewardship
  • Integrated Vegetation Management (IVM)
  • True Colors personality tests

Industry Surveys + The UVM Survey

CNUC conducts the largest and most comprehensive survey of utility vegetation management in North America. In addition to our  UVM Survey, we have conducted electrical distribution and gas pipeline surveys. The data is leveraged to identify trends, best practices, and research and development needs. Additionally, each survey participant can use the data to make quantitative comparisons, aid in rate-based arguments, and budget validations.

All survey participant identities and opinions are kept confidential. Aside from implementing our surveys, CNUC can assist with building, deploying, or analyzing survey data.

Learn more about our UVM Survey
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