Quality is a central component of FPL Group's corporate culture as a high-performance organization

Showcasing quality

A strong commitment to quality is reflected in the level of participation in the company's annual quality competition - the President's Cup - and the accompanying Quality Expo. A record 45 employee teams entered the President's Cup competition in 1998, and the Quality Expo featured more than 130 booths displaying achievements in quality and safety.

A winning team

A team of meter readers won the President's Cup competition with an impressive demonstration of continuous improvement and customer focus. These dedicated employees, who already had a remarkable record of performance, further improved to only .92 errors for every 10,000 meters read. That's the equivalent of just one mistake per meter reader per month, making them the most accurate in the nation. Since 1995 FPL's meter readers have cut their error rate in half, while costs have been held at 1991 levels.

Problem Solvers

Other President's Cup finalists had impressive stories as well. A team developed a predictive model for substation voltage regulators that resulted in a 59% reduction in power interruptions caused by regulator failure. Employees from the Martin power plant achieved a 60% reduction in visible emissions from the plant's stacks through rebuilding certain components. This technique is being applied to other FPL plants sites as well.

Lower costs

FPL has succeeded in maintaining low electricity prices through a constant focus on reducing costs and improving quality. FPL reduced its operations and maintenance costs per kilowatt-hour for the eighth consecutive year in 1998 to a level one-third lower than they were in 1990. FPL's residential rates are lower than the U.S. average and are the lowest among the major investor-owned electric utilities in Florida. What's more, FPL is the only major utility in the state that has not asked for a base rate increase in the 1990s.

High performance

FPL's quality efforts are currently focused on strengthening its position as a high performance organization that is recognized as world class in all business aspects. Departmental assessments based on the criteria established for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award are being used to measure the company's progress. The criteria include leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information and analysis, human resource focus, process management, and business results.

Best practices

The power delivery business unit implemented a comprehensive high performance organization plan identified as a "best practice" to be emulated by other appropriate business units. Under the plan, new employee engineers work in a variety of positions during their first 16-20 months on the job to learn all aspects of the organization before being named to a permanent position.

Baldrige Foundation

FPL Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer James L. Broadhead was named president of the Foundation for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in early 1999. The foundation raises contributions to fund the Baldrige Award program, created by Congress in 1987 in memory of the late Secretary of Commerce Malcolm Baldrige. The program seeks to enhance the competitiveness of U.S. businesses by promoting quality awareness. In 1998 Congress approved extending the benefits of the Baldrige program into the education and healthcare sectors. FPL employees with expertise in quality tools and techniques work with Florida schools and school systems to help improve the quality of education.