Plant engineering function maintenance

Within the plant engineering function, there are typically two primary subfunctions, best described as engineering and maintenance. The engineering subfunction is responsible for such matters as design, construction. 

In traditional organizations, the plant engineer is responsible for the operation and maintenance of all plant services (i.e. electric and steam generation, water treatment, waste treatment, etc.). In locations where these services are provided by outside sources, the plant engineering function is responsible for the internal distribution of electricity, steam and other services and the supervision of the outside service provider. 

Because plant engineering and maintenance labor cost are visible, these functions are frequent targets of cost cutters. Invisible to top management and buried in overhead or other categories are... 

Figure 1.1 Typical organization of a small plant illustrates that plant engineering is one of the essential functions in any plant. Maintenance is normally a subfunction of plant engineering...

Product innovation absorbs considerable resources in the fine chemicals industry, in part because of the shorter life cycles of fine chemicals as compared to commodities. Consequently, research and development (R D) plays an important role. The main task of R D in fine chemicals is scaling-up lab processes, as described, eg, in the ORAC data bank or as provided by the customers, so that the processes can be transferred to pilot plants (see Pilot PLANTS AND microplants) and subsequently to industrial-scale production. Thus the R D department of a fine chemicals manufacturer typically is divided into a laboratory or process research section and a development section, the latter absorbing the Hon s share of the R D budget, which typically accounts for 5 to 10% of sales. Support functions include the analytical services, engineering, maintenance, and Hbrary. 

Maintenance departments provide support to other functions of manufactuting management. Some of the corporate staff activities that are of concern to the plant maintenance organisation are iadustrial relations, finance, material control, services, and manufactuting engineering. 

The aforementioned reviews and assessments were assimilated to characterize the effect of dielectric, rotational, and mechanical hazards on motor performance and operational readiness. Functional indicators were identified that can be monitored to assess motor component deterioration caused by aging or other accidental stressors. The study also includes a preliminary discussion of current standards and guides, maintenance programs, and research activities pertaining to nuclear power plant safety-related electric motors. Included are motor manufacturer recommendations, responses from repair facilities to a questionnaire, in-service inspection data, expert knowledge, USNRC-IE audit reports, and standards and guides published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). 

Process analytical chemistry (PAC) is a field that has existed for several decades in many industries. It is now gaining renewed popularity as the pharmaceutical industry begins to embrace it as well. PAC encompasses a combination of analytical chemistry, process engineering, process chemistry, and multivariate data analysis. It is a multidisciplinary field that works best when supported by a cross-functional team including members from manufacturing, analytical chemistry, and plant maintenance. 

All installations and functional units which come into operational contact with flammable material, have to be examined as to whether an explosible atmosphere may be present under normal operating conditions. These include times of inspection and maintenance as well as situations of minor process deviations. In a new plant this evaluation should be performed for the first time during process engineering activities and be available in documented form for the detail engineering. 

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