Knowledge hub dinner

Gavin Poyntz, on behalf of the EESG, provides an update on the highlights of the Through-life Engineering Services dinner.

On 8 July a representative of the Energy, Environment and Sustainability Group attended the Through-life Engineering Services dinner. This dinner was organised between EPSRC Through-life Engineering Services Centre and the IMechE working group on engineering reliability.

The EPSRC Through-life Engineering Services Centre is a collaboration between Cranfield and Durham Universities, with multiple industrial partners. The working group on engineering reliability is a specialism inside the IMechE Safety and Reliability Group .

The event was led by Professor Rajkumar Roy (Cranfield University) and Rob Wilson (IMechE), with the Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Manufacturing, Chris White, chairing the discussions of seven industry experts during the dinner.

The industry experts discussed their views on Through-life Engineering and how this affected their business. This ranged from extending the life of the current nuclear electricity power generation plant to the difficulties of providing a future maintenance contract on products that had yet to be designed.

Discussions ranged from research on basic principles (such as self-healing materials) to operational deployment of proven systems. The general impetus was how Through-life Engineering is inherent in the work that a good engineer creates, but a more scientific understanding is required to create optimum whole-life costs.

Areas of discussion ranged from how manufacturing tools could be standardised so machines do not rapidly become obsolete to how naval ships could have a common weapon mounting system to simplify the supply chain and repair process.

Thought had not turned to how less material and fewer processes could be used overall. The idea that a military truck component would require a high reliability rate and low failure in operation rate than a civilian logistic truck leading to the component being used in the military application before transferring to the civilian application was not common. This could allow for both the military and civilian reliability and failure rates being met whilst only a single component being produced. Standardisation through an industry or across industries seemed beyond today’s capabilities, with current improvements being driven by individual companies looking to increase their individual offerings.

The greatest positive point from this dinner was the drive to change engineering from just meeting the quality requirements at the lowest first costs to offering a complete service throughout the life time of the product. Our hope is that this drives a more sustainable use of our limited resources whilst increase quality of products and services to us all.