Life Cycle Engineering Success Stories
LCE Helps a Food Processing Plant Build a Preventive and Predictive Maintenance Program
A large-scale food processing plant located in the Midwest was performing proactive preventive maintenance activities including lubrication, and using predictive maintenance technologies such as vibration and oil analysis. However, the preventive maintenance program lacked the justification of risk mitigation controls using specific failure modes to prioritize, prevent or mitigate risks of failures during production.
A New Reliability Engineer Applies REC Knowledge to Reduce Downtime and Maintenance Costs
For Kenta Yasuda, a young engineer who began his career in a five-year-old reliability program, having formal instruction to turn to for best practices and acumen was a must for success in his role. He chose Life Cycle Institute for training, with the ultimate goal of earning his Reliability Engineering Certification (REC).
An Aluminum Cast House Throughput Study Identifies Strategies to Improve Output by 13%
An aluminum producer needed to increase production capacity. It turned to Life Cycle Engineering (LCE) to help with a specific issue: identifying how the aluminum plant cast house could increase throughput to meet the increased demand for aluminum billets.
Life Cycle Engineering Experts Propose an Innovative Solution for Reducing Greenhouse Emissions in the Maritime Industry
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from ships is difficult and complex, with many pathways under consideration. Many maritime industry leaders are evaluating changing the fuels from petroleum-derived to renewable or non-carbon-based, which may require significant fueling infrastructure and ship fuel-system design and may impact the cruising range and operation of vessels. That’s why Life Cycle Engineering’s subject matter experts have proposed to the U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration’s (MARAD) Maritime Environmental and Technical Assistance Program (META) to evaluate an innovative and quicker solution for the short term: comprehensive shipboard carbon capture solutions to reduce GHG and combat climate change. The project was awarded by MARAD because it supports the broader efforts within the META Program to investigate and address maritime de-carbonization solutions.
Even Small Wins Matter - Improving a Pulp-and-Paper Mill’s Sheet-Break Recovery Time
As part of implementing Reliability Excellence in a large pulp-and-paper mill, Life Cycle Engineering, Inc. (LCE) assigned a Lean subject-matter expert to identify and eliminate production losses and aggressively investigate potential limiting factors that could be resolved quickly. These loss-elimination activities had two objectives. First, to begin the change process by getting the workforce involved in resolving problems that negatively affect the plant. Second, to generate immediate improvement in plant performance and profitability.
Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative: Transforming the Organization to Meet Performance Goals
Sugar Cane Grower’s Cooperative (SCGC), a 54-member farmers’ cooperative in Belle Glade, Florida, needed to change. The 60-year-old operation had been a very traditional sugar mill and was not applying modern industrial practices.
Like many industries in the refining and processing sectors, SCGC was experiencing pressures from multiple sources that made transforming their business a strategic imperative. Globalization, variable year-to-year financial results, increasing regulatory complexity, and a lack of long-term focus for the organization were many of the significant issues that required leadership to transform their team, define their values, and equip the organization for a dramatically different competitive environment in which they would be operating. In short, SCGC needed to transform their organization into a highly reliable firm that leverages technology and consistently meets its growth and performance goals.
Calculating Total Cost of Ownership Requires Knowing the Cost of Materials
A food manufacturer with several existing production lines spread across the U.S. wanted to determine the total cost of ownership before designing and building a new line for one of its plants. They had excellent analysis on raw materials, operating costs, and projected typical capital project spending for improvements. However, they did not have the same level of information to review maintenance material spend, an important component of total cost of ownership. Because they lacked the data, they asked Life Cycle Engineering (LCE) to evaluate and develop a 10-year maintenance material spend forecast based on their most recent production line in operation.
LCE Contributes Expertise to the U.S. Navy’s Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP)
The Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP) is a 20-year, $21-billion effort to modernize the U.S. Navy’s four nuclear shipyards in Kittery, Maine; Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Portsmouth, Virginia; and Bremerton, Washington. These public shipyards – which repair the Navy’s nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers — are aging and facing obsolescence issues. The Navy commissioned a program to create digital twin models of these shipyards to prepare for a multi-billion-dollar optimization overhaul and recapitalization of these critical infrastructure assets.
Drilling into the Data Helps a Steel Company Reduce Downtime and Improve OEE
A steel producer was incurring significant unscheduled downtime due to equipment and processing issues. This was particularly problematic because the company was struggling to meet market demands.
Life Cycle Engineering Successfully Executes LCS Preventive Maintenance Availability
The U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) are fast, agile, mission-focused, and platform-designed for operations in near-shore environments, yet are also capable of open-ocean operations.
