Institution news
For further details of the conference and to book your place, please visit the event website.
Please provide us with a brief overview of your current role and how it exposes you to ageing assets?
Nick Deavin (ND): As the company Senior Maintenance Authority, I assure the appropriateness of the asset maintenance delivered and provide technical advice and guidance on standards and relevant good practice. On a site with over 50% of facilities predating 1960, this necessarily means a large amount of my focus is on ageing asset management.
What do you see as the key priorities for engineers faced with this challenge?
ND: As we operate assets longer than originally planned, we start to encounter unexpected failure modes and fault scenarios, making risk assessment and mitigation more difficult. Education of our maintenance engineers in Failure Modes Effects Analysis and Root Cause Analysis is starting to become prevalent.
What new strategies or projects in asset management do you think have the potential to change things for the better?
ND: I see a lot of the issues being due to non-adherence to process. I’m all for reaping the benefits of quality and continual improvement. Let’s apply the process, own it and only change it when we prove it needs it. That being said, the through-life thinking in asset management, Building Information Modelling and BSRIA soft landings will certainly make the relevant maintenance and operational information more visible and accessible.
What are the risks for organisations who don’t take a proactive approach?
ND: Reduction in safety along with increased cost and time to repair or maintain aged plant and infrastructure. The short-term investment to transition from reactive to proactive can be large but the medium and long-term benefits to safety, reliability and availability are well known. It can also be an incentive for attraction and retention of the workforce.
What will you be addressing in your presentation at this year’s conference?
ND: Lessons learned from transitioning a large company with complex sites from a reactive compliance based operating model to a proactive reliability and compliance model.
What other topics or speakers are you most looking forward to?
ND: It might be my British Forces background but I am most looking forward to the Robert Pattinson’s submarine delivery approach to life extension talk. However, the whole programme has value.
Why is it so important for engineers to come together at this conference?
ND: Engineers have to work together to address the mistakes of the past. These opportunities to get together enable us to share experience and learn how drive towards a sustainable future.