CASE STUDY |
Wood Pellet Boiler Conversion

Vortex Engineering is a mechanical engineering company that specialises in the design, manufacture, installation and servicing of air pollution control systems, fume and dust extraction systems, and material handling solutions. They also design air conveyor systems and offer general engineering design and manufacture services.

THE CHALLENGE

Vortex Engineering Ltd were engaged in a large project to convert one of the coal fire boilers at a milk plant in Dunsandel to wood pellets. The key aspects of this project where:

• Transporting the wood pellets from a truck into storage silos through pneumatic blowlines.
• Transferring the product from the silos to the existing day bin via also via pneumatic blowlines.
• Strengthening the existing day bin and adding explosion safety equipment to account for the new explosive risk that comes with wood pallets.

During the install process Vortex forecast a shortage of resource due to winning several new projects. They needed additional short-term Project Engineering resource while they worked through the process of recruiting permanent staff. The engineer would be reporting to a remote Vortex Project Manager therefore they needed a solid technical background and great communication skills.

THE SOLUTION

Caliber was able to respond quickly to provide “boots on the ground” to work on the project. Caliber’s Project Engineer worked under Vortex’s direction to help deliver the project, while allowing Vortex to fulfill their other project obligations.

Caliber was involved in the following tasks:

• Quickly coming up to speed on the project and understanding the remaining tasks to complete.
• Co-ordinating with the installation contractors on start dates, site requirements/ specifications & project targets.
• Organized the logistics of transporting the components to site.
• Generating purchase orders, getting supplier quotes and sourcing components.
• Provided onsite contractor supervision and management, ensuring the contractors where correctly installing the equipment safely.
• Troubleshooting on site, addressing problems on site as they come up and generating solutions.
• Tracking progress of the install against the project timeline.
• Completing safety audits to ensure contractors are completing the work safely.
• Working through mechanical and electrical checks for dry commissioning.

The result was the project being installed correctly, with all mechanical and electrical equipment checked. Caliber was then able to handover the project effectively once Vortex had sufficient resources to take over and finish the commissioning.