Our combination of forensic and design skills, allows us to provide significant incremental value to the services we carry out in each of these fields.

Forensic Client Benefits

Our long history in mechanical design, and our ability to perform detailed finite element modeling to better evaluate the underlying causes of machinery failure, offers unusual insights. For example, when working in harsh climates, machinery failures often occur in equipment that would otherwise enjoy long and reliable operating histories, under more benevolent environmental conditions. Our knowledge of cold weather design needs, allows us to more quickly and decisively identify the reasons for cold failures.  Engineers without this combined set of skills and experience have difficulty identifying the root causes of such failures, making them less valuable as forensic engineers.

Design Client Benefits

The corresponding benefit to design clients is that we have extensive experience in the way that equipment fails.  As a result, we can anticipate failure points that others would miss. We take this knowledge into consideration as we design new machinery. This makes our equipment more reliable. It performs better over its lifespan, and enjoys fewer accidents and maintenance problems. 

Knowing the way that equipment fails, also allows us to design in additional safety features.  For example, recently in the United States, a cable failed, dropping a 15,000 pound piece of equipment onto a rig floor.  We were originally engaged to design the equipment. Anticipating a likely failure mode, we integrated unique architecture, such that in the event of a cable failure, the equipment was designed to fall in a safe manner.  Other designs might have caused the equipment to fall over when it hit the rig floor, potentially killing rig workers.  Our equipment remained standing.  In addition to saving lives, this greatly reduced equipment damage, and subsequent repair and downtime costs.