Plant engineers responsibilities

Plant engineer responsible for mechanical maintenance such as testing of alarms and trips, as well as installation of new instruments. 

In compiling the initial suggested guidelines for each of the contributions, 1 posed the questions to myself what information and assistance had 1 found difficult to locate during over 30 years as a plant engineer responsible for plants throughout the world and how could it be best presented to assist others in their profession. 

Process flow reduction should be targeted and must be in such a way that it will not impact upon the operation of the process or plant. The normal first response by a plant engineer is that air flow reduction cannot be done. However, subsequent investigation has resulted in that most of the time flow reduction can be done. This should be a significant area to focus on when conducting a pollution prevention audit. 

A few phrases from a 1999 classified ad for a plant engineer provide some real-world insight on the scope of responsibilities ... 

Coordination of plant engineering activities and responsibilities with all other functions and departments in the organization... 

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. 

The plant engineer by definition must be a generalist who has a basic knowledge of all aspects of business. Because of these expansive skill requirements, the plant engineer must have the training, experience and expertise necessary to fulfill this critical role in the organization. In part, a plant engineer is responsible for ... 

In addition, the plant engineer is responsible for testing newly installed systems to assure that they comply with procurement and performance specifications. 

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. 

Generally, the plant engineering function is responsible for overall plant safety, as well as all compliance issues. The plant engineer must adapt to the constantly escalating federal, state and local regulations that govern these compliance issues. 

Perhaps the most important role of the plant engineer is process optimization. This function has the sole responsibility for improving the reliability and performance of production and auxiliary systems. 

In any case, the plant engineer has a responsibility to keep careful account of all the costs incurred, which may be recoverable in whole or part under the policy, and submit appropriate invoices to the insurer. He also has an obligation to minimize these costs insofar as this is reasonably compatible with achieving his objective, which will be to restore normal production. The insurer may have access to sources of replacement plant items or to specialist repairers of whom the plant engineer is not aware, and advice on these matters is part of the service provided by the insurer. 

On occasions, the amount of a claim will be found to exceed the sum insured, and as the sum insured is the maximum amount the insurer will pay, the insured will not be fully compensated for his loss. It is the responsibility of the insured, with the assistance of his broker or other intermediary, to ensure that sums insured are adequate and are not eroded by inflation. The plant engineer also has a responsibility to inform his broker if he increases the value of plant items, adds substantially to the total value of items at any one location or, where items are insured individually, takes additional items into service or removes them from service. 

Most plant sites have access to a public supply of water. Until recently this was legally required to be no more than wholesome and palatable . Water suppliers are now responsible for meeting the EC s Directives (see Table 31.1). Wherever possible, all drinking-water taps should be served directly from the incoming main, and the plant engineer s sole responsibility is to ensure that no deterioration takes place within his system. 

Peaks and troughs in the man-hours allocated weekly for planned maintenance can be avoided if hours entered are added up for each week after a number of assets have been scheduled. Treating each plant room or department in this way provides the number of man-hours required for the respective plant room and/or department. All assets to be covered by the planned maintenance system are scheduled in the same format, thereby providing the engineer responsible for allocating the work tasks with total manhours for each trade group. 

Nir Keren, an experienced plant engineer and talented graduate student at the Mary Kay O Connor Process Safety Center at Texas A M, took on a benchmarking study to compare MOC practices. He developed a questionnaire and distributed it to more than 50 chemical and petrol chemical industries, refineries, and gas plants. There were responses from 26 facilities. The survey asked about 25 probing questions. His comprehensive paper was presented at a Mary Kay O Connor Process Safety Center Symposium in October 2001 and later published by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. [9]... 

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