Reliability engineer at Sasol Synfuels, Maretha Price, will be one of speakers at this year’s Southern African Asset Management Association (SAAMA) Conference, which takes place from 12 to 14 May at the CTICC in Cape Town.

Price will discuss the topic of reliability engineering, which is often defined as a field that is mainly aimed at studying systems or equipment to ensure that it performs as per requirements for a period of time.  Price is of the opinion that a wide variety of tools and techniques exist in order to monitor equipment, optimise equipment health, ensuring stability, finding root causes and more, but the process of integrating all the various tools and techniques is often neglected.

Her experience is that, as a result of poor tools & technique integration, many organisations don’t experience the full benefit of a reliability engineering function. To realise its full potential, it is essential that the reliability function has a clear, workable knowledge and understanding of all the various tools and techniques available to bring about effective asset management.  It’s important that the inputs and outcomes of using the various techniques are understood in order to gain a holistic view of asset management to relay information back to the building blocks of engineering to ensure that equipment will perform its function as per design intent.”

Price argues that the last critical element of a successful reliability engineering function lies in the function’s ability to influence, lead and direct the various engineering disciplines to manage equipment health from a central point. “This is primarily achieved by maintaining a close working relationship with engineering and operations.”

Price’s presentation will be aimed at identifying the basic building blocks, tools and techniques of reliability engineering, as well as the process to go about integrating the tools to develop a single, optimised asset management plan.  It will also address the roles and the responsibilities of a reliability engineering function to be successful in reaching its full potential.