Engineering Drawings & Oil Platforms: Lessons Learned
The tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year has provided some "hindsight" perspectives on the importance of maintaining accurate and updated engineering data when maintaining complex equipment. Investigators of the spill discovered that one of the factors that delayed attempts to seal the well from gushing oil was that engineers were using outdated engineering drawings for the wrong well components; as a result the engineering on the sea floor was not the same as the engineering reference documents.
In retrospect, what type of steps could be taken in the future to prevent situations just like this on oil platforms?
Platform operators would do well to take a page from the airlines in the way they maintain their oil rigs and manage their engineering. Configuration management is the practice of tracking parts and components on complex systems. Among other things, it requires that engineering changes go through a systematic review process where all repairs and engineering changes are logged and presented to maintainers in a way that ensures that only the latest engineering is available and presented. Implementing a comprehensive configuration management system will improve the quality of maintenance and reduce the likelihood of catastrophic failures, all without increasing maintenance costs.
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hans said on 01/26 at 04:01 AM
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