Offshore pumps provide a lesson for manufacturers

October 1, 2018

Manufacturing faces a series of maintenance challenges on dry land. When you move the manufacturing process to an offshore oil rig, those challenges become magnified. It’s vital to maintain operational efficiency in all areas, and pumps are clearly one of the highest-stressed areas on a rig. As Jennifer Cardillo of Sulzer noted in an article, maintenance must be proactive in these conditions. "Pumps form one of the main groups of equipment that influence the outcome of both challenges and they require expert knowledge to ensure continued reliability and performance," she writes. "Furthermore, the capital expenditure to improve reliability is most often far outweighed by the costs incurred by an unexpected failure and the subsequent costs of lost production. By taking a proactive approach and involving an expert maintenance provider, platform operators can deliver significant benefits to the business in the long term." That’s a lesson for maintenance of all kinds: treat maintenance as a profit center, not a cost center.

Bob Vavra, content manager for Plant Engineering, CFE Media, bvavra@cfemedia.com.