Sealing and bolting
specialist James Walker however is taking a different approach with many of its
customers – using root cause analysis.

The vast majority of maintenance problems stem from
incorrect installation, incorrect product specification or short-sighted
cost-cutting. The James Walker service identifies the correct products and
specifications that should be used and will also often include the training of
maintenance teams, providing fitting instructions and operational schedules
where necessary, to ensure the issue is resolved. In other cases the company
may re-design or re-engineer a flange, housing or seal to eliminate the cause
of the maintenance issue and provide instant savings in terms of lost
production, wasted energy and unscheduled downtime.

The focus is on three key plant areas – Bolted joints and
flanges; valves, and expansion joints. One of these is the subject of a
presentation on Tuesday 11 March at 11.10 within The Business Exchange event at
Maintec, where Adrian Jefferies, a
Senior Project Engineer at James Walker, will illustrate the best
practice in bolted joint assembly by using measurement of the installed bolt
loads in his presentation entitled Gaskets
don’t fail – bolted joint assemblies do.

James Walker will be exhibiting a comprehensive range of
products and services at Maintec on stand M4F.