1. An important aspect of the work
of any good thermographer is esti-
mating the cost savings of thermo-
graphic inspection services to help
managers understand and justify
their expenditures, and informing
the client of future benefits of regu-
larly scheduled inspections.
Enormous costs are incurred an-
nually by industry and ships where
equipment failures, excessive wear
leading to shortened machine life, or
fire, and consequential loss of profits
and increased operating costs, and af-
fect many budget categories usually
unnoticed because their causes are so
diverse.
Lost revenues to land based and
maritime operations by the failure to
inspect ships reaches easily intothe bil-
lions of dollars annually as evidenced
by the nearly biannual major ship fires
costing an average of $500,000,000
when all expenses are calculated (see
Testimony of Ross A. Klein, PhD Be-
fore the Senate Committee on Com-
merce, Science, and Transportation,
Tuesday March 1, 2012), or worse, the
nearly biennial ship lost at sea due to
fire or scrapped after a fire.
Certain incidents are clearly exempt-
ed from this, the BP accident was hu-
man caused, the recent breakage of a
ship at sea seems likely to be a marine
architecture failure, the Costa Concor-
dia, clearly human error, and so forth.
So the two major issues are human
error and mechanical faults, which may
be human induced (improper assem-
bly, improperly torqued, dirty electri-
cal connections, the wrong
lubri-
cation, etc.) or some
physical anomaly such
as corrosion from exces-
sive environmental heat,
exposure to corrosive elements (elec-
trochemical, electromechanical ther-
mal induced, or chemical oxidation).
While much of the work I have done
is University based research, or in the
military or commercial marine, how-
ever, this is just as true in land based
commercial and industrial sectors.
This is a tremendous and largely
preventable waste of resources.
A significant segment of thermo-
graphic inspection reports should be
comprised of cost savings data to help
managers understand the cost saving
generated by the thermographic in-
spection team.
Updating Data
In times past this was done simply
by estimating the replacement costs
of the particular piece of equipment.
Questions arose at times for those us-
ing higher numbers and justification of
this practice, which is actually quite
easily done.
During this time, and on a specific
day, these expenses occurred to me.
The event happened when inspecting
the USS Kitty Hawk from the yard at
Philadelphia after her final engine re-
fit in 1991. The thermographer found
a relatively large item, informed the
Warrant Officer on site of the impend-
ing fire.He informed the thermogra-
pher that the captain would not delay
sea trials for such a problem, and so we
awaited the results as we were writing
our reports.
The fire alarm was sounded in the
early evening hours of the same day.
The resulting fire gave the Captain
no choice but to delay the ships sea
trials for three days which the crew
synthesized a replacement parent that
could have been corrected in a matter
of hours by accepting the warranted
advice of the inspection team and
delaying the sea trials several hours.
I started thinking about the cost of a
warship of this magnitude with 4500
men aboard delayed for three days.
That error in judgment cost millions of
dollars.
There is little hope for managers on
land or sea if they are going to ignore
the experts they hire.
Ships and industrial fa-
cilities have normal com-
pliments of fixed and variable costs
incorporated into cost and profit pre-
dictions. When equipment is operating
normally each item has a fixed cost, a
variable cost and generates a contribu-
tion to the overall business profit or
loss. It is reasonable to look at every
machine and various equipment in the
operation as contributing to the total
profit of the business.
When equipment cannot be used it
cannot contribute to profit, however,
it may contribute significantly to busi-
ness losses. If the reason it is not op-
erating is because it has failed, then
not only is it not contributing profit, it
also imposes added equipment repair
costs to the company. Here we need to
be reminded that sometimes on ships
this results in the total loss of the ship
and some portion of the lives at sea,
however, whenevera failure is a criti-
cal failure, the results can at times are
fatal to workers, death being caused by
fire or explosion.
Why Qualified Inspectors?
A frequent question relates to why
we ought to hire outside help as op-
posed to the people selling cameras
claiming they are “point-and-shot” and
simply have our engineers perform the
inspections themselves.
Allow me to illustrate with some ex-
amples.
There is a problem, but you cannot
find it because it is not on the equipment
pictures, rather it is the thermographer,
trained as a Level 1 Certified Thermog-
rapher, he needs further training.
The problem is that the thermogra-
pher photo-bombed the image by cap-
turing his own reflection.
There is no actual electromechanical
issue here at all.
But he doesn’t know that. So even
with his training he made an error. The
second error was in not having a Level
2 thermographer attend him during the
inspection. Lastly, the company did not
know what to repair.
The power distribution panel above
was found to have a small rise of about
10C above the other contacts. Is this
an issue? Like a good novelist, I didn’t
give you all the information. The sys-
tem was at 10% power at the time.
Now is it a problem? (It was repaired
immediately at my direction, highest
priority.) Well, yes, and for two rea-
sons: 1) At full power it would have
failed in about two hours of operation,
and, 2) it would have failed under the
absolute worst of circumstances. Think
about it.
Scenarios at Sea
To understand the cost savings of a
qualified thermography inspection one
needs to know the total costs of equip-
ment failure. This varies considerably
as to where the equipment is operating
and the availability of replacement of
course, so let’s simply examine the cat-
egories of costs incurred.
Labor Costs
Laborcostsincludedirectandindirect
costs, overhead, possible subcontract-
ing expenses, overtime, consequential
labor cost, and potential machinery
room expenses if a component replace-
ment. There are operators, maintenance
and repair engineers, supervisors, and
management costs incurred with each
event, and add to this administrative
labor, accounting, shipping, receiving,
transportation to the site or ship. When
speaking of Oil Sands in, say, at Ft. Mc-
Murray, Canada, the cost is similar to
an off shore pumping platform in the
Gulf of Mexico.
Service Costs
Possible costs of services lost in-
clude the cost of extinguishing a fire
caused by the failing equipment, which
is more common that one might ex-
pect, the cost of replacing or recharg-
ing firefighting equipment, the cost of
cleanup, elevated insurance costs, the
cost of follow-up investigations by the
ship’s crew, the owner and manager
of the ship, insurance companies, and
agencies having authority in the spe-
cific case. Call out charges for special
services which, when a ship is at sea,
may include firefighting, towing, pas-
senger transfers, or simply delivery
of replacement components, removal,
disposal, and installation costs. Travel
time for crew needs to be added, and
lastly time lost on other work.
Product Costs
In this category we have to distinct
possibilities, the product being de-
livered by the equipment that fails,
say, food for the crew or passengers,
which happens in kitchen and refrig-
erator equipment failures or fires. In
which cases you need to calculate lost
food, waste disposal, and replacement
of food. Or in the case of refrigerated
shipping, very high but insured cost of
replacement of products spoiled. How-
ever, it can also mean the primary or
secondary waste treatment equipment
not being able to treat waste result-
ing either in the inability for waste
disposal for individuals or the dump-
ing of untreated waste overboard and
concomitant fines as defined by what
was jettisoned and where. All in this
category can have significant impacts
on the good will value of the ship and
the company operating it. Assessing
lost good will is more difficult as it is
an intangible asset.
Using Thermographic Inspections
as a Cost Reduction Strategy
Using Thermographic Inspections
as a Cost Reduction Strategy
Property Damage Cost needs consideration as well as
Business Interruption Cost in addition to loss of use costs
Dr. Ron DuPont
13Safty Mangment Issue No. 1 - Octoper 2015