General

Our principal consultant is a chartered engineer who graduated from City University, London with an honours degree in Automation Engineering in 1973.  He is a member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers and a member of the Institute of Measurement and Control.  During his long and distinguished career with several leading international oil companies, he has amassed extensive experience in development and implementation of reliability improvement strategies.  His broad experience includes maintenance and project roles in instrumentation, electrical and mechanical engineering. 

During the past 10 years he has focused his attention on reliability improvement work and in particular on Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA) and Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) within refining.

He has chaired maintenance management conferences throughout Europe and presented papers relating to the application of RCFA and RCM in oil refining at these conferences.

Root Cause Failure Analysis

As an acknowledged champion of RCFA he has trained over 100 people in RCFA techniques and provided coaching and mentoring to many others.  He has facilitated failure investigations and frequently managed critical investigations into major and extremely costly production disruptions both in the UK and within Europe.

Reliability Centred Maintenance

RCM is a very important activity in reliability improvement and our principal consultant has been the driving force behind the development and implementation of an RCM programme within refining.  Through his coaching and facilitation of RCM studies, the performance of production units has significantly improved.  In some cases, the availability of such units has increased by up to 10%, whilst others have benefited from an annual financial saving of up to £1.5m.

Operating Envelopes

Operating Envelopes or Operating Windows are a key feature of reliable operations.  Our principal consultant has played a significant role in the establishment of a monitoring system and facilitated the development and implementation of the actual operating envelopes.

Vulnerability Studies

Many organisations do not completely understand the risks or vulnerabilities associated with their production facilities.  Our principal consultant has developed a vulnerability assessment process to identify and to classify the priority risks.  This process was used to develop a prioritised and agreed action plan to reduce operational risks through reliability improvements.

Summary

The application of any of these processes will improve reliability of your plant.  Link one or more of them together into a structured and systematic approach and they will result in significant improvements in the reliability and performance of your plant, processes and equipment along with the associated improvements in your operations.