Top 5 Plant Engineering articles, March 28-April 3: Product of the Year winners, corrective maintenance repairs, maintaining deepwater wells, more

Articles about the 2015 Product of the Year winners, corrective maintenance repairs, maintaining deepwater wells, subsea repairs, and the skills gap were Plant Engineering's five most clicked articles from last week, March 28-April 3. Were you out last week? You can catch up here.

By Erin Dunne April 4, 2016

Plant Engineering Top 5 most read articles online, for March 28 to April 3, covered the 2015 Product of the Year winners, corrective maintenance repairs, maintaining deepwater wells, subsea repairs, and the skills gap. Link to each article below. 

1. 2015 Product of the Year winners

Plant Engineering‘s 2015 Product of the Year program consisted of 15 categories with 52 winners. The awards were presented to the winners at the 2016 Engineering Awards in Manufacturing dinner hosted by both Plant Engineering and Control Engineering

2. Stop corrective maintenance repairs on preventive maintenance work orders 

There has been a lot of discussion as to why we are asking technicians to write corrective work orders for problems found on a PM instead of fixing the issue on the spot. If we consider the example of the four machines within the article, it becomes clear why this is the case. 

3. The challenge of maintaining deepwater wells 

The full effect of cheap oil on deepwater production is yet to be seen. Operators are cutting capital investment but remain committed to replacing production. One analysis suggests that the cost of adding recoverable reserves by intervention in producing fields is cheaper than by development of new fields. 

4. Getting to the bottom of subsea repairs

Depressed oil and gas prices and the resulting cuts in capital spending for exploration and production have made headlines in the petroleum industry. Shrinking cash flows have had similar impacts on the other on aging offshore infrastructure. Many pipelines designed to be replaced 10 to 15 years after the first flow continue to operate after 20 or even 30 years of service. 

5. The skills gap is a misnomer

The reported skills shortage can be greatly alleviated with the new productivity best practices and by new definitions of the old work augmented with better shop practices—which produce more productive teams with new tools to apply to old tasks. 

This list was developed using CFE Media’s web analytics for stories viewed on www.plantengineering.com, March 28 to April 3, for articles published within the last two months. 

—Erin Dunne, production coordinator, CFE Media, edunne@cfemedia.com