Maintenance, Repair and Operations Feature Library

Operations Engineer's library catalogues editorial features going back five years.

Access to all archive material is free to all, including non-members of IPlantE (the Institution of Operations Engineers) or BES (Bureau of Engineer Surveyors), under the umbrella of SOE (Society of Operations Engineers). However, to discover the many benefits of becoming an SOE member, please click here.

01/12/2008 Breath of fresh air It is not uncommon for organisations to report that up to a third of their total factory energy bill can be attributed to compressed air plant. No surprise then that, with energy prices at record highs, reviews of compressed air systems ... » Read More

01/10/2008 Wet engineering With the likely passing of the European Environmental Liability Directive 2004/35/EC into British law in December - extending the existing 'polluter pays' principle to water sources, inhabited land, and protected species and habitats - ... » Read More

01/10/2008 Unreasonable engineering So how do you fancy a bit of unreasonable engineering? How about building a variable speed electric motor, rated at 2.5MW for pumping operations 3,000 metres down on the sea bed? Oh, and, for good measure, let's have it driven by an 11kV ... » Read More

01/10/2008 Turning the tide While wind farms, for most of us, are the iconic, if not entirely friendly, face of renewable energy, there's a quiet revolution readying itself for launch on an unsuspecting public. The new talking point will be marine turbines. Not only ... » Read More

01/10/2008 Sound of silence Ultrasonic tools are invaluable in detecting bearing failure, mostly because warnings appear well before any temperature rise or low frequency vibration can be seen. In fact, the technology recognises everything from early fatigue failure, ... » Read More

01/10/2008 Got it covered? The scale of demand for innovative surface coatings, from sectors of manufacturing where component performance and longevity are key, demonstrates the potency of new technologies - and the sheer potential value for plant engineers ... » Read More

01/08/2008 Sellafield special seal Novel wet pipeline sealing and deployment techniques, successfully trialled for the now redundant first-generation nuclear waste treatment and storage plant at Sellafield, will not only prevent hazardous conditions arising on plant, but ... » Read More

01/08/2008 Motoring clinic Given current low prices for electric motors, compared with high costs of plant downtime caused by a failure, making a repair-versus-replace decision should be easy, shouldn't it? In theory, yes, but while there's no contest for motors ... » Read More

01/08/2008 Greener world Most plants have already implemented a wide range of energy-related programmes - from switch-off campaigns to intelligent production scheduling at lower time-tariffs; and from installing energy-efficient equipment to improving maintenance ... » Read More

01/08/2008 Cost versus risk Here's a thing. Suppose you've got condition monitoring in place on plant: if you find some equipment trending towards failure, what should you do? Or suppose you haven't gone the condition monitoring route, so you're running planned ... » Read More

01/06/2008 Peak performance Maintenance is about looking after plant, right? So how much we spend on it, depends on the value of that plant. That's how we make our decisions over what maintenance policy to apply - break/fix, preventive, predictive. Isn't it? And, if ... » Read More

01/06/2008 Magic bullets Maintenance of the all-new Hitachi trains for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link - the first consignment of which is now in the UK - is going to be a challenge. It's not that this fleet, which is based on the iconic Japanese Shinkansen bullet ... » Read More

01/04/2008 Overall benefits The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide (Scotland) Act 2007 will enter the statute books in June this year. Under its provisions, it will be easier for companies of all sizes to be successfully prosecuted for causing the death of ... » Read More

01/03/2008 A process of elimination Mercifully, serious incidents in the process industries are few and far between. Sadly, however, when they do happen, they're devastating. Consider Flixborough back in 1974, Piper Alpha in the North Sea in 1988 and, much more recently, ... » Read More

01/02/2008 Track performance Infrarail 2008, the UK's major rail infrastructure show, provides an opportunity for plant engineers responsible for ensuring the safety and efficiency of rail equipment, machinery and systems to see engineering innovation in action. » Read More

01/02/2008 Global warning For some engineers, questions about how much money could have been saved if a major failure had been predicted, trigger thoughts about the cost of expensive process interruptions and downtime. For others, it's all about avoiding ... » Read More

01/12/2007 Lubricate the parts Just a decade ago, outside the automotive industry, synthetic lubricants were in low volume production. PTFE-based lubes, for example, were expensive problem solvers, aimed only at applications where mineral oils just couldn't handle the ... » Read More

01/10/2007 Skin deep While it's still the case that bulk material properties decide overall engineering strength and mechanical performance, coatings increasingly determine not only appearance, but corrosion and wear resistance - and serious developments are ... » Read More

01/08/2007 Replace or recondition? Reconditioning large roller bearings can save a great deal of time and money - and result in at least as good a job as installing new. And that applies even on critical machinery that could seriously impact plant availability. Sounds ... » Read More

01/06/2007 New view on rail maintenance Maintaining the UK's rail network involves thousands of engineers looking after hundreds of miles of lines, switches and crossings. It's a serious management and communications challenge, but Balfour Beatty Rail Infrastructure Services ... » Read More

01/04/2007 Seeing is believing Plant maintenance has always been seen as a necessary evil. So the idea of investing cash in technologies to predict when and what might be necessary doesn't cut much ice with many managers. They understand the basics of break/fix, where ... » Read More

01/04/2007 Getting the personal touch Nothing can be more important than employee safety: turnover and profit are meaningless in comparison with the well-being and security of staff. If a serious accident, or worse a fatality, occurs as a result of poor safety practice, the ... » Read More

01/04/2007 Biolubricants: not just green but better Around 95% of industrial and commercial lubricant applications can be satisfied by the newer generations of biolubricants derived from crops like oil seed rape and sunflowers - and for many there are now clear advantages in swapping from ... » Read More

01/02/2007 The Main Chance Timetable What: Maintec 2007 Where: 20-22 March, NEC, Birmingham When: Tuesday 20 March 10.00-16.00 Wednesday 21 March 10.00-16.00 Thursday 22 March 10.00-15.00 For some 30 years, the Maintec event has been focused on ... » Read More

01/02/2007 Health check-ups reap big rewards In the age of lean, condition monitoring of capital equipment is an obvious aid to efficient operation, as opposed to waiting for something to break down. As Chris Haines, Rockwell director of customer support and maintenance UK and ... » Read More