Nick Barrett, Editor
nick@maintenanceandengineering.com
@MaintOnLine
Maintenance is obviously crucial to the safe and efficient performance of any asset, from the simplest production line to the fully automated factories of the future. Every issue of Maintenance & Engineering and our incorporated publication Asset Management Journal is full of examples of products and strategies that can be adopted to ensure maintenance is as efficient as it can be.
Maintenance engineers know that they play a central role in the safe operation of much that is vital to modern life, a role that is acknowledged in our Asset Management Journal this month by senior engineers at the fore of a unique research effort involving thousands of research scientists and engineers at the world leading STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory research facility in Oxfordshire.
The crucial item that is the focus of the maintenance team’s efforts is a particle accelerator that makes neutrons and muons in a radioactive environment, part of a long term research strategy that it is hoped will help shape the UK’s industrial future.
Maintenance is regarded as a crucial part of the research carried out here that will contribute significantly to development of the industrial materials of the future. A net-zero National Grid is a key ambition of the research.
As well as the particle accelerator the maintenance team have to maintain the targets that the particles generated are fired at to create neutrons and muons, and the sensitive instruments that are used for research.
There is no way this facility can be allowed to run until breakdown, so it is closed completely for three months every six years for maintenance, repairs and replacements. Mid-cycle shutdowns are planned that can last two to six weeks, with occasional one day shutdowns to repair equipment that might not last.
Restarting the entire facility can take five days so only equipment needing maintenance attention will be shut down during these occasional maintenance interventions. Engineers can spend entire careers at a facility like this, and as the work is leading edge and fascinating there are few problems attracting recruits, who often join under apprenticeships or as part of degree programmes.
Not all will have the specialism to accurately diagnose a particular problem or spot one looming, but someone in the team will, so teamwork and communication are vital skills.
The engineers involved are at the cusp of the next generation of computer aided maintenance, and are using and developing other new technologies. For example, machine learning software is being used to monitor the lifetime of instruments in a methane moderator, and will be used elsewhere to estimate when other parts need to be replaced or cleaned.
Maintenance is informing the design of the next generation machines that will replace the existing 30 year old accelerator. The new ISIS-II will involve generating higher energies while increasing reliability, and the designers are taking maintenance into account from the concept stage.
The new design will allow easier access for maintenance engineers and reduce radiation risk in areas that require regular maintenance. If the Rutherford Appleton example is followed maintenance can be expected to play an increasingly big role in shaping designs and the manufacturing future.
Productivity improvement demands automation investment
Hearing about the leading edge work like that carried out by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory should help inspire the engineers and scientists of tomorrow, but the feeling that these are unrewarding, dangerous, dirty or plain boring careers persists among not only potential recruits but wider society.
Work is underway to combat that with organisations like the Manufacturing Technology Centre among those taking a lead. Announcing the release of a new report MTC’s Professor Chris White said the future of work and of manufacturing is about to change dramatically. “Its culture can no longer be described as ‘dirty, dangerous and dull’, but one that is clean, safe and as exciting as our imagination will allow.”
The report – “Robotics and Automation: A New Perspective” – produced with the Industrial Policy Research Centre at Loughborough University, argues that speeding up adoption of industrial automation and robotics can lead to dramatic improvements in productivity.
It says that the slow uptake of robotics among British manufacturers, and a reluctance to invest in automation, has contributed to the country’s notoriously slow productivity improvements in recent years.
The basic scientific and engineering skills base and technology to turn the situation around exists, and earlier reports have identified over £183 billion that could be generated over the next decade if the UK moved itself up the international league table for investing in automation and robotics.
And there’s the rub – lack of investment and of a supportive attitude from a financial world that fails – with a few notable exceptions – to grasp the scale of the opportunities and prefers more risk free returns from investments in areas like utilities or property is holding productivity back. Manufacturing has a big job on its hands to turn that situation around.