Operation, maintenance and survivability are key issues for offshore, and, as we report, software reliability is vital to those three pillars.
The ‘failure’ headline is a famous and inspirational quote attributed (wrongly) to Gene Kranz during the Apollo mission in 1970. Whoever coined the phrase is not important, but 40 years on it is still a mantra for engineers working in industries where reliability is critical.
As today’s industrial environment becomes increasingly competitive, the operators of key infrastructure systems need to rely more on the use of condition monitoring systems which alert them to the early stages of deterioration (whether it be through fatigue, wear or any other prolonged stresses). By adopting a more proactive, rather than reactive approach, engineers can not only monitor the safety but also the efficiency and reliability of the maintenance procedures they use.
Failure is no longer tolerated
Engineers who work in the aerospace sector fully appreciate the dangers of relying on legacy equipment and know that taking a traditional, simplistic approach to monitoring and maintaining the health of critical equipment and systems is simply not good enough. Therefore they generally work towards a standardised monitoring interface to streamline operations, increase efficiency and boost availability.
Fatal flaws in both systems and machinery can be difficult to predict and observe as complexity increases. Therefore, engineering teams use condition monitoring software to guide them to identify these problems before it’s too late. For instance, automated systems routinely conduct vibration monitoring of helicopter gearboxes providing alerts of any problems in shafts, gears or bearings or warnings of any metallic debris in oil systems. This allows them to remove gearboxes early, and identify and fix the problems, before they cause any critical issues during flight.
Cases like the Chinook disaster on the Mull of Kintyre and the Nimrod crash in Afghanistan are the exceptions, proving the rule that those who do adopt a condition monitoring approach can be much more confident that their systems are safe, productive and reliable.
