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Reliability of Systems and Equipment Operated in Harsh Environments: 60 seconds with Robert McMillan and Mark Jenkins of Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy Limited

Robert McMillan and Mark Jenkins, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy Limited

Reliability of Systems Operated in Harsh Environments 800
Reliability of Systems Operated in Harsh Environments 800

Ahead of speaking at Reliability of Systems and Equipment Operated in Harsh Environments, we caught up with Robert McMillan, Product Safety Officer and Head of Engineering Wind Power UK and fellow speaker Mark Jenkins, EHS Project and Stakeholder Manager for Global Centre of Competence (Offshore) of Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy Limited.

They explained their roles and involvement in the reliability of systems and equipment operated in harsh environments, the critical challenges, five to 10 year vision and what they are looking forward to at the event.

Q: Could you briefly explain your role and involvement in the reliability of systems and equipment operated in harsh environments?
Mark Jenkins is the Risk Manager in the Centre of Competence in Offshore and is our key representative in delivering safety cases in all facets of the Wind Farms we are involved in building/maintaining.

Robert McMillan is the Head of Engineering for Offshore Wind Power in the UK and covers Product Safety this works as the sounding board and point of contact for the UK on development and issues.

Q: What is the number one challenge in the quest to improve anticipation of the problems that can occur when trying to maintain reliability in harsh environments?A: We see the number one challenge as reducing Mean Time Between Visits as it encourages better behaviour toward placing personnel at risk offshore (increase safety), longer periods of non-maintenance (reliability & availability), reduced periods offshore (maintainability) and finally greater production period (customers’ business case).

Q: What is the most exciting development in this field at the moment, either within your company or in the industry in general?
<strong">A: Energy storage in conjunction with cost effective solutions for far shore i.e. floating turbines, remote monitoring and use of other methods of monitoring (drones, radar).</strong">

Q: What is the most exciting development in this field at the moment, either within your company or in the industry in general?
A: A more resilient turbine without human interaction through maintenance would be a natural evolution, redundancy coupled with more certain generation.

Q: What are you most looking forward to by attending and presenting at the seminar?
A: We would like to demonstrate a sample of approaches that a larger OEM has a view of and through working with the education sector, to gain feedback from an interested audience.

Find out more

Robert and Mark will be speaking at Reliability of Systems and Equipment Operated in Harsh Environments on 6 March 2018 in London. Join them and other experts from Rolls-Royce, SSE Engineering Centre, Bechtel, BAE Systems plc, DNV GL Noble Denton Marine Services, IBM and more.

Key programme highlights:

  • Bechtel share case studies on rotating equipment in harsh environments within the oil and gas sector
  • Rolls-Royce discusses design for service in relation to gas turbine engines
  • Find out about onshore wind turbines in harsh environments from SSE Engineering Centre
  • Gain key insights about in-service reliability for combat aircraft systems from BAE Systems plc
  • Hear from IBM about the rise of the machines and reliable self-healing assets
  • Learn from Sellafield Ltd. about how they engineer reliability at their site.

For further information, visit Reliability of Systems and Equipment Operated in Harsh Environments.

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