pX limited won the O&M contract for Fellside CHP in November 2007. This plant had previously been run on a minimal budget for several years but what was now required by the owners is a shift to “as new” condition and so a huge amount of work was required. I was asked by pX management to relocate to Cumbria, build and run the EC&I department. At the time of my arrival the plant reliability was very poor and the EC&I department was one technician. In my time here I have recruited and shaped the department to what is commonly recognised as the highest performing team on site. Reliability and availability have shifted from the low sixty percents to the high eighties. The experience has given me much greater experience in the management of people where I have dealt with all areas from recruitment to departure.

My role at the plant is the responsibility for all aspects of EC&I, including the justification for and control of the budgets and approval of all plant modifications and projects. Obviously obsolescence and reliability have proven my biggest challenges on the technical front. Through prioritisation of higher failure mode items and a risk based assessment of more reliable equipment I have been successful in moving maintenance from reactive to proactive in the majority of their work time. Now that breakdowns and callouts have been reduced we are able to facilitate much bigger improvement programs, such as the site fire systems, which will give the plant longer term maintainability.

In tandem with this I have worked hard at the safety culture within the department. The culture I inherited was one of “get the job done” where now we assess the task and its risks before proceeding any further. I have also driven several key changes to the site safety rules and guidelines to align them with current legislation and give staff better guidance. I have recently taken on the chairmanship of the cross-site electrical safety team, producing and implementing electrical and instrumentation standards for the business as a whole.

Additional to my core role I have taken on additional areas responsibilities. Stores, procurement and purchasing now fall within my remit. I am working with the team to restructure our purchasing system, making it much slicker whilst enhancing level of control on budgets and quality. In parallel with this I am producing and placing several key contracts for supplies and services, again more of a commercial role towards better value for money and better control of specifications and liabilities.

I have also taken on the business management systems for Engineering and Maintenance. I am driving a restructure of our quality systems and documentation to make it easier to find the document required, and then leading a team populating this structure with the appropriate controlled documents. A wholesale review of the system was required and this is now well under way.

During this year I have frequently covered the Mechanical Engineer’s Role and that of the Maintenance manager, dealing extensively with mechanical engineering issues as well as interfacing with the owners of the plant.

My major engineering project for the next three years is a full replacement of all site control systems. This £3.5 million project is the phased replacement of all turbine, boiler and site PLCs and distributed control systems with one overall control system. Key areas include full re-design of the system to remove inherent design flaws, bringing the system up to current legislative and best practice guidelines and justifying the expenditure to the owners of the site – Sellafield Ltd. Hence the new system will have to meet Nuclear specifications and be managed to Sellafield project management methods. I will assume the role of CDM co-ordinator for the construction and commissioning phases of the work.

I was promoted into this position at Teesside Gas Processing Plant (TGPP) from EC&I technician at Teesside Power station. In this role I was responsible for all aspects of EC&I engineering and maintenance and had direct responsibility for six full time contract staff and up to four staff technicians. The technicians work a rota, where they are on shifts for operations and then do a six week day shift spell where they would work for me.

I held responsibility for the maintenance of the plant, as well as project engineering and contract management. Whilst in this role I managed major upgrades of the plant distributive control systems, learnt about safety instrumented system (SIL) design and maintenance and took responsibility for all electrical areas of the plant up to and including 11 kV transformers and switchgear.

TGPP is a COMAH level one site and so was subject to rigorous audit in almost every area of its operations. Dealing with auditors and inspectors became a routine task, especially on the calibration and testing of key equipment.

TGPP also took on the maintenance contract for an adjacent 50 MW CHP plant. Here I planned and managed the machine’s first major outage. Due to concerns about the original installation I also ran a team that effectively re-commissioned the HV systems, installing a new key interlock system to the switchgear to prevent inadvertent misoperation.

I was an Electrical, Control and Instrument technician based at Teesside power station, looking after Maintenance and upgrade of all systems.

One of my roles was system administrator for the Foxboro control room systems and I have completed several of the training courses on the system, with experience working most aspects. I was also the chairman of the UK user group.

As an EC&I technician I was involved in all areas of EC&I maintenance and development on a large variety of equipment from small Instrumentation tasks through to re-engineering various systems. I also held responsibility for several areas of plant and their maintenance contracts.

After three years in the technicians role I moved into the Projects department, jointly running the E&I design department and responsible for a variety of projects from Concept, through installation and on to operational hand over. The largest of these was the replacement of the site wide gas detection system utilising DetTronics and Draeger hardware. The design and installation of this system was used by the HSE in developing their guideline for Gas Turbine detection systems (PM 84). Other tasks included projects as diverse as the modernisation of 415-volt power panels, automation of chemical dosing systems and rewiring the admin building.

When this role was wound up I moved over to turbine outages as part of a multidisciplinary team controlling the machine's shutdowns from concept to return to service. Roles include planning, resourcing, running some contracts and interfacing between various departments and contract managers. I also created much of the safety documentation, including risk assessments, for the shutdown. I am proficient with Microsoft Project and Pimavera planning tools, and I am an IOSH certified risk assessor. I also developed the generator maintenance workscope with Brush Electrical machines, supervised the contract, and managed all generator maintenance from minor testing through to full rotor and stator changes on 330 MW machines.

As part of this role I developed the planned maintenance of these turbines to a level where it is was contracted out on target cost basis, and could now be contracted fixed cost. Previously much of the work was on an ad-hoc basis.

During a shutdown I normally manage a crew of craftsmen (in my last season I had a team of 42 including four charge hands) to complete the Electrical and Instrumentation workscope. During this period I manage the scope to ensure first time delivery on plan, utilising productivity ratios and critical path analysis as control methods.

In the same year I also headed up a team to introduce a pro-active quality control element to the outage department. The data produced from this exercise assisted in moving the group forward to increase the effectiveness of planned maintenance and focus on key areas. This was to reduce the reactive element then inherent in our shutdowns, especially during recomissioning and "return to service" periods

I served a 4 1/2 year, Multiskilled apprenticeship then stayed on as production line maintenance. Whilst there I was working on a variety of systems including Electrical, Electronic, Hydraulic and Pneumatic. As part of this apprenticeship hand skills and quality of workmanship became ingrained, as did working in an environment where team work was paramount.

Working in a multiskilled environment gave me a good appreciation of mechanical work and issues, which still assists me in my current role. However, I always tended towards the electrical and control side of the works and my abilities in these areas were often used to assist others when major issues arose. Work in these areas particularly involved working on weld control systems, variable speed inverter drives and the design and implementation of control schemes.

Nissan was an intensive production environment where any issue rapidly escalated in importance. This gave me a very good grounding in thinking clearly, working effectively and safely whilst under pressure from both production and management.

I eventually specialised in PLC (mainly Omron, some Siemens) and Robotic (Fanuc series) programming, fault finding and some training of other personnel. I was also involved in various projects and initiatives to enhance the production and safety of the plant. I also managed teams of contract personnel on the installation and commissioning of several new production lines.