07 Jul Project 5.2: Identifying a Power Plant ProblemYou are an independen
Project 5.2: Identifying a Power Plant ProblemYou are an independent consultant and operate a business known asPro-Active Consultants Inc. from your home. Four days ago youreceived a telephone call from Paullette Machon, who is vice president,operations, of Baldur Agricultural Chemicals (BAC), a company withmanufacturing plants across the country. She said she has a task for youand invited you to visit her at the BAC office at 1450 Disraeli Crescent(of the town or city where you live).“I want you to drive over to our plant in Gordontown,” sheannounced, “to look into a technical problem in the power house.”(Gordontown is 43 miles from your city, has a population of 15,700, andits primary employer is the BAC plant.) “I’m concerned that power housecosts are rising at Gordontown just at the moment when world fertilizerprices are dropping,” Ms. Machon continues. “This is causing the compa-ny to be uncompetitive in both national and international markets.”Ms. Machon explains that BAC requires a lot of hot water and steamin its manufacturing operations. However, over the past two years fuelconsumption at Gordontown has risen by 18%, numerous breakdownshave occurred that have interfered with production, and there has been asharp rise in production costs. She has visited the power house repeat-edly, but has never found anything that could be attributed to poor oper-ation. In fact, the power house has always been immaculate.Now Ms. Machon wants an independent consultant to take a look,talk to the people in the power house, and try to identify any productionproblems.She also hinted that the problem may not only be technical. “Thepresent chief engineer at the BAC power house is Curt Hänness, and heis to retire in three months. BAC management has to decide whether topromote Harry Markham, the existing senior shift engineer, or to bringin a new chief engineer from outside the company. On paper, Markhamis ideal for the job. He has worked in the power house for 15 years (heis now 36) and always under Hänness, so his knowledge of the plantand its operations cannot be challenged. Yet the rising costs indicate thatall is not as it should be in the plant, and we want to be sure that thenew chief engineer does not perpetuate the present conditions.”She said she would inform Hänness and Markham that she hasengaged you to study the hot water and power generating system in theirpower house, and that they are to expect you.You visit the BAC power plant in Gordtontown today. During yourtalks to plant staff and tours of the plant you make the following notes:1. Housekeeping excellent—whole place shines (but is this only surfacepolish for impression of visitors?)2. Maintenance logs are inadequately kept—need to be done moreoften. Need more detail. Equipment files not up to date and notproperly filed.3. Boiler cleaning badly neglected. Firm instructions re boiler cleaningneed to be issued by head office.4. Flow meters are of doubtful accuracy. May be overreading. Notserviced for three years. Manufacturer’s service department shouldbe contacted (these are Weston meters). Manufacturer needs to becalled in to do a complete check and then recalibrate meters.5. Overreading of meters could give false flow figures—make plantseem to produce more steam than is actually produced.6. Good housekeeping obviously achieved by neglecting maintenance.Incorrectly placed emphasis probably caused by frequent visits fromcompany president, who likes to bring in important visitors andimpress them. Hänness likes reflected glory (so does Markham).7. Shift engineers are responsible for maintenance of pumps and vac-uum equipment. Not enough time given over to this. They seem to prefer straight replacement of whole units on failure rather than pre-ventive maintenance. Costly method! Obviously more breakdowns:they wait for a failure before taking action. A preventive mainten-ance plan is needed.8. Markham seems O.K. Genial type; obviously knows his powerhouse. Proud of it! But seems to resist change. Definitely resents sug-gestions. Does he lack all-round knowledge? Is he limited only towhat goes on in his plant? Is he afraid of new ideas because hedoesn’t understand them? Young staff hinted at this: too loyal to sayit outright, but I felt they were restive, hampered by his insistencethat they use old techniques that are known to work but are slow.Nothing concrete was said—I just “felt” it.9. Hänness has done a good job training Markham. Made him a car-bon copy. Hänness doesn’t do much now. Markham runs the show,and has for over a year. He expects to get the job when Hännessretires. It’ll be a real blow to him if he doesn’t! BAC might even losea good company man.10. Discussed microprocessor-controlled CORLAND 200 power panelwith staff. Young engineers had read about it in “PlantMaintenance”—eager to have one installed (I described the one I’dseen at Pinewood Paper Mill). But Hänness and Markham knewnothing about it—didn’t seem to be interested. Are they not keepingup-to-date with technical magazines?When you return to your office you write an evaluation report forMs. Machon. You can either address both the technical problems andthe personnel difficulties within the one report, or write two separatereports.
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