Page 26 - KFTL Report

7 Condition of the Cranes
7.1
7.2
7.2.1
General Summary
The general physical condition of the QC’s appears to be in good condition, however, the state of repair regarding certain key elements/ functions of the QC’s are in need of attention, some immediate.
ZPMC Quay Cranes (QC’s):
During our on-site assessments and workshop engagement sessions with the engineers, regarding the QC’s, we were able to establish and understand the following issues:
Drives/ PLC’s & CMS Plan
a) The current GE/TMEIC Drives, Communications BUS, PLC and CMS are obsolete today. This causes problems for KFTL when it comes to supporting the products either through parts availability or external technical support. The Communications BUS that allows Drives/PLC to communicate instructions to each other, has been obsolete for many years, and is the ‘lifeline’ of the crane. If/when this fails, it will have a significant impact to KFTL with respect to re-instating these cranes back to productive revenue earning service.
b) The cranes were delivered with a local and remote CMS (Crane Management System). The CMS is utilised by technicians to manage troubleshooting activities, and health/status of the cranes.
Both the remote and local CMS servers failed, and licences from the GE/TMEIC were not transferrable, and due to additional costs now involved, the local/remote CMS systems were never re-instated.
This has caused untold problems for KFTL technicians with respect to troubleshooting. Troubleshooting today is performed using the only option available, and that’s by manually working through ‘relays’ to understand where the problems are on the crane.
As KFTL do not record technician times on any Work Orders (WOs), it is impossible to accurately state time lost on carne productivity, but in talking to various persons, a figure of 50% would appear most realistic which would represent the reduction in troubleshooting time for KFTL.
c) In addition, and with serious safety implications, KFTL cranes have a significant number of uncontrolled ‘hard wire’ bypasses as well as PLC ‘soft wire’ bypasses. All made harder to see and understand with no visible access into the cranes drive systems.
Once incident that was shared with Trent relates to a boom override (hard wire) that had been inserted, led to a boom being raised and at its stop position, not actually stopping, but instead allowing boom hoist drum to continue rotating until all boom ropes had come off drum.
KFTL DUE DILIGENCE – Kingston, Jamaica
TRENT ASSOCIATES 26