The hardy perennials of maintenance
Neil CleggUpstream Production Solutions, 1101 Hay Street, Perth, WA 6005, Australia. Email: neil.clegg@upstreamps.com
The APPEA Journal 59(2) 539-541 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ18062
Accepted: 18 April 2019 Published: 17 June 2019
Abstract
This paper is about the maintenance of safety critical elements on oil and gas facilities. Different approaches can be applied to design the appropriate maintenance plans that will ensure the availability of safety critical barriers. The challenge and opportunity for maintenance engineers today is to apply their knowledge and experience to improve the issues that are already known to exist with the current approaches for maintaining safety critical elements. Additionally, collaboration is required between operators, regulators and the standard-setting authorities to ensure that the appropriate application of risk-based approaches to maintenance are being endorsed. The two examples considered in the paper are the maintenance and testing of firefighting water-deluge systems and lifeboats (TEMPSC). Overall, improvements using risk-based approaches to maintenance will lead to safer operations, more consistency in maintenance plans, greater alignment between standards and practice, and reduced costs.
Keywords: ALARP, deluge testing, lifeboat maintenance, operational context, reliability, risk-based maintenance, safety critical element, standards.
Neil Clegg is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer (IMechE) and technical authority for maintenance and reliability in the oil and gas industry. During his 29 years of experience, Neil has worked in onshore and offshore maintenance, operations, LNG and project engineering internationally, involving some of the largest global projects in the oil and gas industry. As General Manger Technical for Upstream PS, Neil achieves operational excellence through developing and coaching teams to maintain high technical standards and pioneer leading ways of working. |
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