Institution news
The challenge for operators is to operate and upgrade generating equipment beyond its original lifespan while ensuring continued asset integrity to meet the high levels of safety demanded by industry regulators. With this in mind, we spoke with Tim Ingram, who will be presenting at the Institution’s upcoming Managing Ageing Nuclear Assets conference during the day 2 keynote “Asset Management in Nuclear and Beyond: A Common-Sense Approach”.
Q: Please provide us with a brief overview of your current role and involvement in the nuclear sector?
Tim Ingram (TI): I’m Technical Director of Strategic Asset Management at Atkins. I’m primarily focussed in the Transport sector these days but I’ve spent probably half of my career in Nuclear. My roles have ranged from maintenance and operations, consultancy within the supply chain right through to work on behalf of the regulator. Recently I’ve also worked with the International Atomic Energy Agency to develop guidance on leveraging asset management for long-term economic operations.
Q: What is the number one challenge facing nuclear engineers in today’s current market?
TI: The industry is trying to maintain and extend equipment which was designed over 50 years ago, often with minimal support information on the assets themselves.
The analogy I use is a 1960s Mustang – if you put a modern apprentice or graduate in automotive engineering in front of an old car like this, they wouldn’t know what they were looking at. The reverse is also true for senior asset managers coming to terms with more modern, digitalised equipment. There is definitely a skills gap to be bridged.
Q: What is the most exciting development in this field at the moment, either within your organisation or in the industry in general?
TI: From my point of view, the concept of asset management itself is really coming into its own. We now have the information required to make informed decisions in a way we haven’t been able to do before. This includes collating and mining data to see big picture patterns and make improvements that weren’t previously visible.
But that provides another challenge that the industry needs to convince itself that these systems can perform safely and securely.
Q: What key areas are you covering in your presentation this year?
TI: I want to reinforce the point that the Nuclear sector is not alone in the challenges it faces regarding aging assets in the UK, but also across the world.
A number of sectors are seeing similar issues and I want to talk about what lessons nuclear can learn (and teach others). It’s about being open minded, because the principles of asset management transcends sectors. But the sector cannot do this alone as government have an important role to play in providing a platform for innovation, and success across the energy sector.
Take a comparably safety focused sector such as UK rail infrastructure – “Network Rail is seeking to improve asset management whilst cutting down on expenditure by implementing a new Intelligent Infrastructure programme.” This will deliver: performance requirements; asset knowledge; effective design; monitoring; analysis; and optimisation. “…Network Rail has identified approximately £380m of activity that could be delivered as part of the Intelligent Infrastructure Programme, delivering reliability, performance, and operation and capital expenditure savings both in the control period and beyond”
Q: What other topics are you most looking forward to discussing at this year’s conference?
TI: It’s the breadth of topics which excite me. Personally, I want to learn more about what is going on in the Nuclear sector which I can apply to other areas – it’s useful as a benchmark. In my role it is vital to continuously learn and break down those silos.
Q: Why is it important for engineers to join the Managing Ageing Nuclear Assets conference?
TI: This event has the potential to be a “state-of-the-nation” type discussion, and create a platform for collaboration. I really like the opportunity to connect people I know within the sector and beyond who may be able to help each other solve problems and share knowledge.
Managing Ageing Nuclear Assets takes place on 16-17 October 2019 in Manchester.
This two-day conference will address the key engineering and regulatory challenges arising from the management of late and end of life nuclear installations and their associated infrastructure. Learn about how to maximise the reliability, performance and lifetime of your nuclear fleet while achieving high levels of safety, with input from industry regulators, operators, contractors and service providers.
To find out more and book your place visit www.imeche.org/mana.