Control Automation 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.

01/08/2008 Water hammer The destructive potential of water hammer and entrained air were demonstrated recently at the Conwy tunnel, where a leaking fire main had been discharging at 300m3 per day for well over a year - costing some £3,500 in electricity alone for ... » Read More

01/08/2008 The energy event The Energy Event What: The Energy Event Where: The National Motorcycle Museum, Birmingham When: 10-11 September 2008 How: Go to: www.theenergyevent.co.uk » 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 PiperAlpha: 20 Years on On 6 July 1988, at about 10.00pm, Occidental's Piper Alpha platform, operating 120 miles off the north east coast of Scotland, exploded in a ball of flames 120m high. 167 people died and many others were horrifically injured as they jumped ... » 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 Good vibrations Now that both noise and vibration are being seen as less acceptable - thanks to legislation limiting exposure (the Control of Noise (April 2006) and Control of Vibration (July 2005) at Work Regulations) - technology is emerging not only to ... » Read More

01/08/2008 Get a green light Legislation, such as the Building Regulations Part L, places pressure on engineers to make facilities more energy efficient, and replacing fluorescent lamps is one way to do so. Part L2B of the regulations, which applies to facilities with ... » Read More

01/08/2008 Flying without wings Mobile plant takes some stick in the armed forces. It's not just that it's required to do the job it was designed for - loading baggage, bombs or weapons on and off aircraft; transporting and lifting materials, equipment and people, both ... » Read More

01/08/2008 Driven world Unless you're heavily involved in project work, chances are your experience of drives, motors and controls is wide - after all, it's bread and butter stuff - but not as wide as it could be. So a quick update would be useful. Especially if ... » 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 You pays your money Key 'pumps' into Google and you'll be rewarded with a multitude of impressive Internet resources - from Cole Parmer's technical library, to Engineers Edge, the Engineering Toolbox, the Hydraulic Institute, the British Fluid Power ... » Read More

01/06/2008 Waste water wars Waste water treatment may not exactly sound glamorous but, from a plant perspective, it presents some interesting engineering and management challenges. For a start, the far-flung nature of pumping stations, sewage treatment works and the ... » 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

01/06/2008 Heightened awareness Last year alone, 45 workers died following falls from height, while 3,409 were seriously injured. And while recent years have shown a downward trend, falls from height remain the most common cause of fatal injury in the workplace. ... » Read More

01/06/2008 First floor Although the number of major injuries to employees as a result of slips and trips decreased slightly between 2006 and 2007, from 10,955 to 10,790, they remain the most prevalent cause, accounting for 38% of the total. More disturbing is ... » Read More

01/06/2008 Fair enough Line managers in engineering companies worry that the law of the land seems to be tilted in favour of their employees, and increasingly fear they need to tread carefully. But what does ?carefully' mean? How much of what we hear is just bar ... » Read More

01/06/2008 Cage or maze? It's a sad fact that plant owners and operators have long since shed most of their engineering departments, leaving behind only skeleton staffs stretched to carry out essential inspection and maintenance tasks. So, with the process, ... » Read More

01/06/2008 Building better controls Improved sensors, electronic controls, automation, modern materials - they're all great, but they're not only about developing radical, high tech engineering solutions. Many can also give a huge boost to old, some very simple and ... » Read More

01/04/2008 Up and away Bad news travels fast, as the saying goes - but not so with rules and regulations. Apparently, somewhere in the region of one third of small businesses in the UK have still not heard of the PUWER (Provision and Use of Work Equipment ... » Read More

01/04/2008 Transform efficiency The good news is that transformers - both the plant used throughout the network operating companies' infrastructure and those at large energy users, such as factories and hospitals - are relatively efficient. In fact, modern power ... » Read More

01/04/2008 Teach a man to fish The Leitch Review of Skills, published in December 2006, warned that the UK must raise its game on training and education, if it is to sustain, never mind improve, its position in the global economy. Whether that study will turn out to ... » Read More

01/04/2008 Spend a little, save a lot Now that we know conventional energy costs aren't likely to fall any time soon, spending what turns out to be relatively little to save a lot has suddenly become much more attractive. All the more so, as engineers and business leaders ... » Read More

01/04/2008 Raising the curtain When DS Smith Converters introduced automatic paper reel handling at its corrugated board production site in Louth, Lincolnshire, it faced a dilemma. The process was already automated, with operators ensuring that paper reels were received ... » Read More