News
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Reviewing your contracts for services
You need to draft a contract whenever outside services are required. The form of the contract can be informal, such as a purchase order referencing a proposal by the contractor. It can also be very formal, requiring bids along with…
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Connecting the shutdown to your business strategy (Part I)
The challenge for managers in any business is to identify the critical elements that determine success or failure in their respective disciplines. Doing so is a three step process: 1. Reinforce and exploit those elements that generate success; 2. Eliminate,…
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What makes a successful plant shutdown?
A shutdown is a major task that has a significant business impact. Shutdowns are expensive because they are labour and material-intensive and because they take productive capacity off-line. It is imperative that shutdowns are carried out quickly and effectively to…
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Connecting the shutdown to your business strategy (Part II – THE FRAMEWORK FOR EXCELLENCE)
THE FRAMEWORK FOR EXCELLENCE Having set the larger frames within which the framework operates, it is now time to turn to the details of the framework. Key to the framework The approach to shutdowns is broken down into six critical…
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Connecting the shutdown to your business strategy (Part III – COST)
COST The estimation, reporting and control of expenditure on a shutdown are typically one of the weakest elements of most companies’ approach to shutdowns. In order to control costs, we must first be able to define what we mean by…
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Shutdown Work: What’s needed, why and when?
Major cost items come in three flavours — capital investments, catastrophic failures and deliberate plant shutdowns. The first is subject to intense scrutiny/justification and, with the exception of the patchy adoption of life cycle costing, is pretty much understood. We…
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Navigating the shutdown approval process
A shutdown is often described as "an orchestrated logistical exercise in which workers perform their assigned duties around the clock so as to meet a predetermined start-up deadline". The logistics and magnitude of a shutdown event require going through an…
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An examination of risk management in plant shutdowns
All projects include some element of risk. It’s natural to be optimistic that you will overcome any unplanned event during the execution of a project. It’s also normal to be anxious that all things that can go wrong will go…
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Occupational health and safety considerations during shutdowns
Scheduled plant shutdowns have very specific goals and targets for safety, quality, schedule, and cost. Safety performance is typically measured by the number of injury incidents (fatality + lost time incidents + medical aids) and performance compared to past shutdowns…
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Managing the execution of the shutdown
The execution phase of the project or shutdown is, of course, the most important phase. If the plan was laid out well, all the allocated resources will be pulled together to realize their full potential. However, the shutdown coordinator should…
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Making your final report on the shutdown
The end of a shutdown or project is often accompanied by a sense of relief and disengagement. The project end should also mark a time for reflection and constructive criticism while the shutdown is still fresh in everyone’s mind. Much…
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Ontario undergraduate students to benefit from $185 million CAD/CAM/CAE classroom infrastructure contribution
Toronto, ON — Dec. 14, 2001 — Virtual engineering capabilities at Ontario schools are to expand under a program a…
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CAE opens Toronto centre for maintenance and pilot training
Toronto, ON — Dec. 13, 2001– CAE president and CEO Derek H. Burney officially opened the company’s state-of-the-a…
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Ongoing industrial market decline causes distributor to predict severe earnings drop
Cleveland, OH — Dec. 12, 2001 — A declining U.S. ecomony affecting all of its industrial markets has led to an an…
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Siemens plans major expansion in southern Ontario for overhaul services
Mississauga, ON — Dec. 12, 2001 — Siemens Canada plans a major expansion of its international transformer and lar…
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Federal budget concerns for manufacturers noted in CME analysis
Ottawa, ON — Dec. 11, 2001 — In a commentary yesterday’s federal budget for Canada, the Canadian Manufacturers &…
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Lubricants for mini-machines to be ultra-thin and self-repairing
Gaithersburg MD — Dec. 10, 2001 — As part of a program to develop surface protecting and lubricating films that w…
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Machinery accident at Stelco kills employee
Hamilton, ON — Dec. 8, 2001 — Jeffery David Turner, 57, was killed yesterday at Stelco’s Hilton Works plant in Ha…
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Industrial distribution courses take place late March
Birmingham, AL — Dec. 7, 2001 — The next session of the University of Industrial Distribution will take place Mar…
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Definitive reference book for repairing and maintaining dies is published
Dearborn, Mich. — Dec. 7, 2001 — The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) has published Die Maintenance Handb…