Expert Technical Services
Failure and forensic investigation are normally performed after an incident occurs, so to that extent, it is reactive action rather than a proactive one. It will be more appreciated to provide a proactive solution which can eliminate faults/incidents before they have a chance to appear. OSKEFER’s experts have built up extensive experience and expertise in most of the industrial sectors, and can provide proactive expert technical services, e.g., risk-based design review, inspection, troubleshooting, condition assessment, etc.
- Risk-based Design Review
- Risk-based inspection
- Trouble Shooting
- Condition Assessment
Design review is critical to assess progress with respect to overall product design and development. In the design and development phase, it is easier to prevent problems rather than correct them later with minimum cost. Design review will identify hazards in product design and development, and eliminate or reduce risk to an acceptable level.
Based on our Experience in failure analysis / forensic investigation, we are familiar with potential design issues in new product development. We can provide a customized design review service to examine if there is certain potential design issue(s) at the design stage.
inspection (RBI) is defined as “an integrated methodology that uses risk as a basis for prioritizing and managing an in-service equipment inspection program by combining both the likelihood of failure and the consequence of failure”, in the American Petroleum Institute (API) RP 58. Accordingly, RBI is to design an inspection program based on knowledge of the risk of failure. The objective of the RBI is mainly to provide a basic methodology for managing risks through methods, coverage and frequency of inspections.
In failure analysis / forensic investigation of a failed object, we often encounter that the failure might not be an isolated case, i.e., similar problems exist in other in-service objects. We can develop inspection plans for these in-service objects to verify whether a similar problem is present and evaluate the extent of the problem if there is any.
Troubleshooting is a systematic approach used to figure out the root cause of a failure of some kind and decide the best way to fix it to restore operation. Troubleshooting is not just for equipment that has completely broken down, sometimes it is just related to a machine not working as expected. Efficient troubleshooting know-how will save costs linked to maintenance and repairs.
If the root cause of a failure, incident or accident is identified as a manufacturing problem, our team can help review the manufacturing procedures, verify the QA/QC records, and inspect the real manufacturing processes, to isolate the manufacturing problem that induced the filure, incident or accident.
Sometimes, although no failure occurs to the in-service equipment / components after a long service period, the client is concerned of the current condition of these in-service components and interested in their estimated remaining life.
Our team can provide condition assessment and Engineering Critical Assessment (ECA) to demonstrate the integrity and safety of critical equipment or structure and identify whether the equipment or structure is sound enough to meet the service requirements for which it was intended.
