News of people and events important to the maintenance and reliability community

BLACHE JOINS MRC AS ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR

Klaus Blache has accepted the position of associate director with the Maintenance and Reliability Center (MRC) at the University of Tennessee. In making the announcement, MRC's director Tom Byerley noted that Blache is a recently retired GM manger with a rich history of education,training and experiences, much of which is directly in the area of reliability and maintenance. He was an early chairman of the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP) and has championed reliability and maintenance initiatives within GM for years. He has numerous honors and awards, holds several certifications and has a MBA, an MS in Plant Engineering and a PhD in Civil-Mechanical Engineering. Working half time for now, he will be focusing on MRC's Membership and Research programs and gradually taking over the UT-Monash Graduate Study program.

DINGO ANNOUNCES MANAGEMENT CHANGES

Dingo Maintenance Systems has announced the promotion of Steve Bradbury to chief operating officer and the naming of Bob Williams to vice president of sales. Williams will report to Bradbury, who joined Dingo in 2005 as vice president, Operations, following a distinguished career with Air Control Science where he served for eight years leading Alliances and Contracts and Business Development. Williams joins Dingo after leading business growth and operations in a variety of industries, including British Oxygen Company, Siemens Energy and Automation, Invensys and Leica Geosystems.

EMERSON & MITSUBISHI IN POWERFUL NEW ALLIANCE

Emerson Process Management has announced the formation of an alliance with Mitsubishi Power Systems Americas, Inc. (MPSA) of Orlando, FL. The alliance, which combines Emerson's expertise in power plant automation and control with Mitsubishi's experience in gas and steam turbine design and service, applies to North American and Latin American turbine retrofit projects supporting W251, W501D5,

W501D5A and W501F gas turbines, as well as all models of Westinghouse technology steam turbines. MPSA has unique and valuable expertise on these turbines because they were involved in the design and development of the Westinghouse technology since the 1970s and continue to support and modernize the original Westinghouse technology platform.

"Leveraging the respective strengths of Emerson and MPSA results in a complete turbine solution, giving power generators an OEM alternative for gas and steam turbine retrofits, and long-term service and support," said Bob Yeager, president of the Power & Water Solutions division of Emerson. "Together, these companies can offer customers...(Read whole article)