[Escoordminutes] ES Division Coordination Meeting minutes- April 8

[Lew Serna]

Minutes for the ES Division Coordination Meeting held on Tuesday, April 
08, 2008, at 10:30 am, in the LL CB conference room. Attending were Lew 
Serna, Brent Avery, Charley Chavez, Ramon Gutierrez, Bob Broilo, Chuck 
Thompson, Guy Stanzione, James Sullivan, Doug Whiton, Skip Lagoyda, Gene 
Cole and Jon Thunborg.

BUDGET —Site & Wye Track budget is over $40K short but an effort to 
replace the $40K is being made. 4500 RR Ties have been ordered. Track 
will have to wait for more funds to order further track material. Funds 
to purchase a Bus engine and core at approx $20K are still being sought. 
Spending may continue under the assumption that you have last years 
operating budget.


Stock Proposal- Skip Lagoyda introduced a service whereby a company, 
Fastenal, can provide a shop stock of products that they sell, in bins 
at individual VLA shops. The idea is that an inventory of products used 
in a shop can be maintained by a Fastenal representative. The 
representative would visit the VLA on a regular basis taking inventory 
and restocking his bins. The respective shop would then be charged on 
items removed from the stocked bin. This idea is attractive to the 
warehouse since this would reduce the cost of warehousing a large 
inventory. This may also be a good idea for maintaining certain products 
in different shops as well. A meeting will be set between with Fastenal 
and Supervisors/leadmen to see if this is a service we can use sometime 
in the near future.

VLBA -- Tiger Team visits to OV, NL will be planned for 2008. St Croix 
will take an extended mechanical maintenance visit in the fall to 
replace Subreflector, Elevation Bearing, finish painting, install 
platform and possibly change out one Azimuth wheel assembly. Antenna 
mechanics should ensure we have one wheel assembly ready for each site 
being visited except Los Alamos. The paint on the HN subreflector was 
deteriorating and its surface contour will require some work to get in 
final spec. The reflector will need to be prepared in time for the SC 
maintenance visit. A more robust box to ship the subreflector will be 
needed. TT Visits for this year are NL 4/30/08-5/07/08, OV 8/18/08-8/25/08.

The Elevation bearing was replaced at FD without a spare pillow block. 
This method will require refinement but is desirable for future 
Elevation bearing replacement since it would save in time and material 
plus we feel it would make the operation safer than removing the 
complete pillow block to replace the bearing. It is believed that EL 
Bearing failures are due to excessive axial loading of the elevation 
bearings due to the axial alignment being set prior to loading the 
elevation axle.

The BR foundation will require repairs in the near future due to 
deterioration at an approximate cost of $15K. MK dish panels that were 
damaged were replaced. The damaged panels need to be repaired for spares.


AZ BEARINGS – Next Bearing replacement will occur in summer of 2008. An 
estimated three weeks in the AAB are required before a bearing change 
can occur. Parts from the bearings removed from antennas are needed for 
measuring and fitting of new parts and should be stored until they are 
scheduled to be shipped to Rotek for repair. Antenna 14, 16 & 18’s 
bearings have been shipped to Rotek for refurbishment. There is a 12-18 
week lead time for delivery on a refurbished bearing due to factory 
backlogs. Delivery of these bearings should be June of 2008. If possible 
bearing replacement will occur at a rate of one per year in order to 
maintain the EVLA outfitting schedule. There is one good Azimuth bearing 
on hand. One spare bearing should be maintained at all times in the 
event a catastrophic failure occurs.

Grease samples show that antennas 28, 10, 20, are good candidates for 
the next bearing changes. Large metal pieces were recently found on 
Antenna 28’s AZ bearing grease so Antenna 28’s bearing will be scheduled 
to be replaced in July/August of 2008.

PROJECTS:
Control building Stairways— The Control Building Stairways are being 
replaced due to their rapid deterioration. The stairways will be 
replaced with an improved design conforming to ADA. The western stairway 
is complete. A new concrete landing will have to be poured at the base 
of the eastern stairway and the steps replaced. The eastern stairway is 
deemed hazardous and is currently barricaded to prevent its use. Work on 
the eastern stairway will continue as the workload permits. No further 
progress.

ST Croix Maintenance Visit— St. Croix Antenna has undergone extensive 
repair and painting work due to its severe corrosion problems. Work 
began on September 10 through December 21 completing 99 % of the 
painting. Some topcoat painting remains at the base of backup structure. 
In addition the AZ Wheel Assy, Subreflector and elevation bearing 
replacement work will be completed. This work along with finishing the 
painting is tentatively scheduled to occur in October 2008. The 
warehouse needs to make sure that there are enough parts to prepare for 
ST Croix and to maintain a spare (2ea). This St. Croix Trip is expected 
to last about 3 weeks.

VLA ANTENNA FOUNDATION MOVEMENT— A problem with north arm antenna 
foundation movement needs to be addressed. It appears that the two 
rearward station pillars have been slowly separating over the years at 
BN3 and BN5 with BN5 being the worst. They have separated far enough in 
about 33 years that 2 bolts (one on each reward pad) can no longer be 
used to secure the antenna pads to the foundation pillars. Markers have 
been set for taking measurements to try and see which pillars are 
actually moving and at what rate. If it becomes obvious that the plates 
need to be repositioned, this work is in progress. Measurements need to 
be re taken while the stations are without antennas.

VLA LIGHTING- All high mercury content light bulbs should be eliminated 
from stock. A plan to replace all ballasts and bulbs to efficient 
electronic ballasts is initiated. In addition to removing the high 
mercury content bulbs the savings in kilowatt usage would payback the 
initial cost in less than 2 years. Skip is funding this energy project. 
The Control Building is complete and the Tech Services building is now 
being converted.

GENERATOR REPAIRS— Minor leaks were noticed at the engine rear seals and 
it is desirable to install a better fuel filtering system. A bearing on 
the generator unit also should be replacement as a PM. This work would 
cost around $15K and will be put on the funding wish list.


VISITOR CENTER— This project was complete by March 15. The visitor 
center theater has been remodeled. Basically the step seating was 
replaced with theater type seating and the movie equipment was upgraded. 
New carpet and tile was also be installed. This project was funded by 
the EPO and Business divisions. Check it out.


POWER MONITOR— A plan to install power monitoring equipment in the Hatch 
gear will require a power outage lasting 2 days. The preferred time for 
installation would be the fall when the weather dry and calm. Perhaps 
the work can be scheduled on a weekend (or double maintenance day). The 
power monitoring equipment is very useful in determining our power 
quality needs and will keep operations informed of power status at all 
times. A time will need to be determined by operations.

EVLA;
Civil— Correlator Room: A preventive measure to test batteries and 
lubricate the Correlator Door will be implemented by the ES Electrical 
group. The design for cable support in the Correlator Room will be 
provided by ES Division. DC Power supply Cable Tray layout will be 
coordinated in conjunction with Electronics Division data cables 
installation. The cleaning underneath the computer flooring will follow 
installation of cabling. FM 100 training is scheduled for August 8. HVAC 
testing is underway along with testing for required hearing protection 
in the Correlator room. Rectifier and Battery PM’s are being done. Mock 
Correlator racks will arrive so that a dry run on installation can be 
made to prepare for rigging and installing the real racks around May 15. 
Several groups will be involved with the rack installations and Guy 
Stanzione will coordinate the effort.

EVLA Antennas— Feeds: Contracts for casting S-band and laminating of the 
S-band are finalized. S-Band rings are being cut in preparation for 
assembly. For efficiency S-band feeds will be laminated two at a time 
every 8 weeks. The second S-Band Christmas tree will built using L-Band 
Christmas tree parts once the L-Band lamination work is complete. This 
should happen around May. Out of 18 L Band feeds tested, there are 3 
that remain on the on the shelf that have been tested. VSWR tests will 
be made to several L Band feeds later this summer.

SAFETY REPORT :

*Site Safety Meeting: T*he last meeting was held on March 27^th , 2008. 
There were 25 employees in attendees. The topic was Haz-Com and the 
training was conducted by Chuck Thompson.

*Next Site Safety Meeting:*

The next site safety meeting will be on May 1^st @ 3:00pm in the VLA Cafe.

*Other Up-coming training: *

Supervisor of CDL drivers (Required) April 9^th at 10:00 AM Café 
Conference Room CDL drivers (Required) April 10^th at 3:00 PM Café 
Conference Room Supervisor/Manager training tentatively scheduled for 
April 28^th .

*Training Conducted: *

Pesticide Training Conducted on March 12^th training conducted by Tom Dean.

Haz-Com Training, Conducted on March 27^th training conducted by Chuck 
Thompson.

* *

*Inspections Conducted: *

Site emergency lighting, March 6^th and 7^th

NFPA 25, Fire extinguisher, Sprinkler, and pump inspection was conducted 
on March 13th. Site exit signs, March 13^th and 14^th Site emergency eye 
wash/ shower inspection, March 20^th

*Up-Coming Inspections:*

OSHA inspection of VLA site (tentatively scheduled for April)

*Medical Exam:*

Audio metric screening (For New and Current employees) Employees covered 
under the hearing conservation program are employees in one of the 
following areas; Transporter Shop, Antenna Mechanics, Track Crew, Auto 
Shop, Grounds group, HVAC, and Machine Shop

*EMS** News:*

EMS Conference in Ruidoso, NM on April - 21 thru April - 23, Members 
that will be attending are Dominic Zamora, Paul Savedra, Ben Ramer, 
Richard Murillo, Matt Metevier and James Sullivan



ANNOUNCEMENTS:
PEP—April-- Solicit self appraisals

May 15— PEP Training for Supervisors/leadmen

May-June 30-- Supervisors complete forms and conduct interviews

July 7--- All PEP’s due in HR

OTHER:
TRAINING:
Asbestos Training- Removal of Asbestos is very expensive and it is 
desirable to have selected VLA personnel trained to do this since the 
training is not very expensive. Much of the VLA flooring contains 
asbestos and will require special trained personnel for removal or 
modification. We need to decide if it is cost effective to train 
personnel to accomplish this task. If so, we need to decide when the 
best time to do the training is.

TAILGATES--Supervisors and leadmen should conduct tailgate sessions daily.