Engaging Young Engineers Through Education

Though he is now retired and focusing on training new generations of engineers, Gilbert had no typical day and was challenged on a regular basis during his career. When asked what Gilbert found to be most challenging, “Dealing with the technical aspects of the job. Also, there is a lot of new personnel on board so I spent a significant amount of time with young engineers, teaching them about valves, what to look for and what not to spend too much of their time focusing on. I am a Mechanical Engineer so I have a broad background and I really enjoy teaching them about equipment, pressure vessels and piping from past experiences, especially young engineers because they are like sponges, trying to absorb as much as possible.”

Gilbert further explained that some of the challenges he faced involved coordinating purchases with all the different parties involved throughout the supply chain. “It can be difficult working with suppliers to get the materials we need, and often, working within the bureaucracy of a large company to try and make things happen. Making major changes to the work processes in a large corporation is extremely difficult, but it can be done with patience and determination.”

Gilbert worked for Dow Chemical forjust over 30 years and brought with him a wealth of experience; he says it is a great company to work for, where he functioned as a project engineer, project manager and mechanical lead, among other positions. In his last seven years at Dow, Gilbert was in the Mining, Storage and Pipeline Technology Center where he was the owner of the piping specs and the valve specifications for that business segment, along with a number of other responsibilities. He says he has been working with valves his entire career, but it was in that position that he had the opportunity to really focus on them.

He spent quite a bit of time with valve manufacturers and suppliers and reviewed, wrote and modified several valve specifications. His responsibilities included auditing Dow sites globally, valve manufacturers and valve repair facilities. Gilbert’s former position as Gulf of Mexico Valve SME for BP was to find an overall valve strategy for taking the valve from its manufacture to when it is time to dispose of it and all the steps in between. One of BP’s biggest issues was getting quality valves quickly and having a steady valve inventory and supply. He discussed some of the major challenges he faced while in this role.

“There is a huge problem with getting valves quickly. That is industry-wide. We want the product right away and we cannot get some of those valves fast enough. Getting a quality valve, that meets all the specs and documentation requirements can be a challenge,” he revealed. “Another challenge when having a valve inventory, is how to maintain and preserve the valves to make sure they stay in good shape and that when we need it, it will function as it is supposed to. Following that is PPM, or Predictive Preventive Maintenance. Once the valve is on the platform, how often do we need PPM on the valve? And what does that consist of? What do we need to look for? Not all valves are the same. Some are throwaways, some are production-critical or safety-critical, so what do we do in each case? With so many different scenarios to consider, it can be quite challenging.”

Always be Prepared

When there is a failure or a problem with a valve, Gilbert needed a repair strategy. “Do we repair it on the platform? Or do we need to remove it and take it to a shop to repair it? Then we have to have the approved valve repair facilities or suppliers to partner up with. There is a lot of paperwork involved, because we have to have a valve repair data book, and we have to do all the proper testing and inspections.”

Having corporate and region wide standardized valve specifications is critical for ease of inventory of valves, repair of valves and ordering of valves. Most of the platforms are built with joint ventures that do not share the same specs. Standardization is necessary to ensure a pool of valves is available to use on any of the platforms. Gilbert worked on making this happen within BP. “This process was completed for the existing facilities in the BP Gulf of Mexico region. It was a difficult and tedious process that took a significant amount of time, but it was completed and it was a great benefit,” he said.

A quality program is also required to ensure streamlined processes and consistency in quality across the fleet. “We worked with suppliers and looked at material test reports, all the non-destructive testing requirements, all the different inspection steps and all the final body and seat testing requirements. One of the requirements is a valve data book for each valve, which is what is required to make sure we have quality built into the valve. Ideally a team made up of several different disciplines, including procurement, reliability and maintenance, supply chain and technical personnel like myself, is needed to help set policies and make work process modifications (Continuous Improvement). It really has to be a team effort so everybody has their input to make it all happen.”

Though everyone strives to avoid issues, a valve failure can also provide a great opportunity to learn from mistakes and correct the problem. “Every time we had a valve failure, we looked at the materials and did a root-cause failure analysis and tried to figure out why it failed: Was it the wrong materials? Did we use the valve in the wrong application/operation? Was it repaired wrong? Did it get out of its process temperature range? Was it over pressured? We tried to figure out what was going on and learn from that and then maybe correct the specifications, maybe use a different type of material. Whatever we did, we needed to learn from it and incorporate what was learned into our specifications and practices.”

Gilbert also believes that all corporations should have an approved manufacturers list to ensure quality standards and necessary documentation is provided across the board. Maintaining an approved list of suppliers provides an added peace of mind to the end user and ensures consistency. “All buyers of valves should conduct audits of all their suppliers,” Gilbert said. “There should be a list of quality requirements and several technical requirements that they have to meet, so it is a long, rigorous process. These suppliers should be evaluated on a periodic basis. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to allow suppliers to see if they are performing well should be kept. We required a lot of information from our suppliers, but we also needed proof that the quality was there. It is absolutely necessary that there is a paper trail with testing documentation and we did witness-testing as well. We definitely need a quality product that performs like we expect it to perform and we definitely do not like any surprises.”

The Future of the Industry

Gilbert sees a number of significant trends or developments in the industry right now. “The problem I see is that we are not making enough progress in making some new developments as far as valve design. All the valve designs have been around for many decades and in my opinion, there is not enough new technology out there. You look at electronics—TVs, cellphones, computers— they have come a long way and even instrumentation—I think there is technology now where you can use your iPhone to operate a control valve on the other side of the world. I am sure there is an app for it somewhere!” he said. “But the valve world is a little bit behind, for some reason. It is one reason I like to attend the valve conferences is to look for the latest technology, but there have not been many new improvements in seat design and stem packing, or totally new valves that are a major breakthrough, a complete paradigm shift. I want a valve that can last 25 or 30 years, with minimal amount of maintenance, that can operate on harsh services—you know sand, water, seawater, oil and gas, hot, cold, high pressure, you name it—something that is robust enough to last a long time and work just fine. We need to develop that technology where the valve can stay in operation with a minimum amount of maintenance or PPM, and it just runs and operates with no issues.”

Gilbert also believes that inspiring young engineers to come into the industry could be a great way to inspire new ideas, stimulate change and trigger new technology. The industry as a whole needs to focus more on mentoring and motivating younger generations to pursue the technical fields. However, when it comes to attracting young people to the industry, Gilbert believes the United States as a whole has lost that focus.

“We need to get more to the basics, the mathematics and the sciences, and push more of the younger students to go into some of the technical fields and I just do not feel like the United States does a good enough job promoting that. I do not know—they figure all us engineers are nerds! Or they see it as just too boring, thinking they will sit behind a desk doing calculations,” he joked. “That is not what happens at all. There are so many different and exciting challenges. It is actually a pretty good career to be in – in the engineering field and a lot of the technical fields. There are so many opportunities for young people, because right now we seem to be shorthanded across the board. I wish we could get a lot more of the young folks in the U.S. to go into the technical fields,” Gilbert explained. “The gap between the aging engineers and the new guys coming in is a huge problem, not only across the oil and gas industry, but also the chemical industry and probably across the board in manufacturing. I am working with more new engineers than experienced middle-aged engineers. There is a huge concern that folks like myself will retire and there will be nobody left with enough experience to run the facilities and to share that knowledge. Several of the larger corporations have accelerated programs, so that the younger generation of engineers can advance faster.”