Taken from Fonterra Te Rapa’s Express newsletter
Reliability moment
The D4 HP valves with glycerine actuators have been giving us lots of issues in the past few seasons and parts for these have become redundant.
This was highlighted to Engineering by hitting our ‘top ten reasons for downtime’ for D4 last season.
The project was initiated and scoped to replace the HP valves with new Swagelok pneumatic units. Once the approval was given, the unit was implemented with very little lead time coming in to the winter shut.
The result has been very positive with modern serviceable units being installed and combined with much easier access for maintenance. This should return good results, reducing downtime and maintenance on the HP valves.
The main contractors for this were Stewart and Cavalier and Swagelok, their quality of workmanship and tight timeframes were well managed and exceeded our expectations.
Trevor Bell
Site Services Manager