Heinz Bloch takes the position that an
emphasis on people is far better for reaching your Equipment
Uptime goals than PdM. He makes an unusual case for
investments in people and gives at least 10 actual,
well-illustrated examples to support his view.
The point is made that downtime events are
avoided by up-front reliability reviews that “design-out”
failures. He demonstrates forcefully that depending on
people makes much more sense than trusting an electronic
gadget to catch an incipient failure before it becomes a
disaster.
Heinz
P. Bloch is a Consulting Engineer with offices in West Des
Moines, Iowa. Before retiring from Exxon in 1986 after over
two decades of service, Mr. Bloch’s professional career
included long-term assignments as Exxon Chemical’s Regional
Machinery Specialist for the United States.
He has also held
machinery-oriented staff and line positions with Exxon
affiliates in the United States, Italy, Spain, England, The
Netherlands and Japan. Troubleshooting and reliability
improvement missions have taken him to process plants and
manufacturing facilities in 30 or more countries on all six
continents. He has conducted hundreds of public and in-plant
courses internationally.
Mr. Bloch is the author of over 300
technical papers or similar publications. His 14 comprehensive
books and a searchable CD-ROM on practical machinery management
include texts on failure analysis, failure avoidance,
compressors, steam turbines, oil mist lubrication and practical
lubrication for industrial facilities. These groundbreaking
books have been used for reliability improvement lectures and
maintenance cost reduction consulting worldwide. In addition,
Mr. Bloch holds five U.S. and many international patents
relating to high-speed machinery improvements.
Mr. Bloch graduated from the New
Jersey Institute of Technology with B.S. and M.S. degrees (Cum
Laude) in Mechanical Engineering. He was elected to three
National Honor Societies, is an ASME Fellow, and maintains
registration as a Professional Engineer in New Jersey and Texas.
Mr. Bloch is the Reliability/ Equipment Editor of the monthly
publication Hydrocarbon Processing.
