ASCE/SEI Standard 43, “Seismic Design Criteria for Structures, Systems, and Components in Nuclear Facilities,” is a consensus US national standard developed by the American Society of Civil Engineers. It provides design criteria for nuclear structures and should be used in conjunction with ASCE/SEI Standard 4 – “Seismic Analysis of Safety-Related Nuclear Structures”. The two standards are […]
Over one hundred thousand floating roofs have been used in hydrocarbon (oil) storage tanks since the 1950s. A majority of these tanks continue to be in service and are critical to meet strategic storage needs. An earlier article in this blog category describes Industry Best Practices for inspection and maintenance of such tanks. View Maintenance […]
This is the third in a series of Blogs on improving plant reliability performance through changes in culture, programs, equipment design, maintenance and operation. [Click link to review Making Bad Actor Elimination Programs Work; or the second blog, Reliability Beliefs – Driving Organizational Accountability] This blog compares experiences in successful high-altitude expedition climbing and the effort to […]
Many companies and organizations have been on the reliability journey for a number of years, while others are just beginning. There are many elements of a solid reliability program – establishing a reliability centered culture, tracking key metrics, bad actor elimination programs and establishing equipment reliability plans – to name a few. But, one key […]
From a process standpoint, your Fired Equipment items are not only some of the most critical but some of the most risky items in day-to-day operations. Add in the presence of open flames and failures can be dramatic. In today’s refining climate, fired equipment is required to run 4, 5, 6 or even 7 years […]
On May 18, 2017, the California Department of Industrial Relations’ Occupational Safety and Health Standards (CalOSHA) board approved a new regulation that changes how Process Safety Management (PSM) is handled for oil refineries within the state of California. This regulation was approved in response to high-profile industry incidents in the state of California in the […]
Rick Hoffman, Director Mechanical Integrity for Becht, was published in the July/August 2017 edition of the Inspectioneering Journal. Rick’s two blogs concerning Making Bad Actor Elimination Programs Work and Reliability Beliefs – Driving Organizational Accountability (both on this website) were combined into a single, free-standing article. You may view a pdf of the Inspectioneering Journal by clicking HERE. Rick Hoffman joined […]
This is the second in a series of Blogs on improving plant reliability performance through improvement in culture, programs and equipment design, maintenance and operation. This Blog focuses on Reliability Beliefs – a key element in organizational accountability for everyone to do the right thing every time. Read the first blog in the series – […]
I personally went through Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Ike during my career living in the Gulf Coast. Restarting our plants after these storms was challenging, home life was miserable without power for three weeks and traveling over 100 miles north to find gasoline, food and water for family and neighbors was time consuming and hazardous. […]
Making A Super Heavy Lift? Here’s What You Need To Know If you are making a single super lift or a series of super lifts there will be a tremendous number of documents created during the planning stages. In addition to the original documents there will be numerous revisions as the fine tuning of the […]
