Engineering Insights | DDMS GLOBAL

Engineering insights

Written by the engineers who executed the work and published when there is something worth saying. No content calendar, no thought-leadership filler.

Articles published: 9
Categories: 5
Written by: Delivery engineers
Publishing cadence: When warranted

Library

Engineering method, safety systems, sustainability practice, project accounts and industry analysis.

Engineering18 June 20267 min read

The load path in your drawings is not the load path in your structure

On legacy industrial plant, the drawing set is a historical document rather than a description of the building in front of you. Here is what that means for demolition sequencing — and what it has cost projects that assumed otherwise.

Read article

Why cold cutting is a programme decision, not a safety preference

Engineering

22 May 20266 min read

Why cold cutting is a programme decision, not a safety preference

Inside an operating refinery, the constraint on progress is rarely manpower. It is permit throughput. Choosing mechanical separation over thermal cutting changes that arithmetic more than adding crews ever will.

Read →

Taking down 120 metres of concrete beside an energised 220 kV switchyard

Projects

30 April 20268 min read

Taking down 120 metres of concrete beside an energised 220 kV switchyard

Explosive felling was the obvious method and the wrong one. A technical account of why top-down mechanical demolition was selected, and how the chimney lean was managed throughout.

Read →

Recovery value is decided in the first hour of handling

Sustainability

14 March 20265 min read

Recovery value is decided in the first hour of handling

By the time material reaches a scrap yard, most of the decisions that determine its value have already been made — on the work front, by crews who may never have been told they were making them.

Read →

Stop-work authority is either unconditional or it does not exist

Safety

8 February 20265 min read

Stop-work authority is either unconditional or it does not exist

Almost every contractor states that any worker can stop the job. Far fewer have created the conditions in which a first-week labourer actually would. The gap between those two positions is where incidents happen.

Read →

Your decommissioning cost is largely fixed before the plant stops running

Industry

21 January 20266 min read

Your decommissioning cost is largely fixed before the plant stops running

Decisions taken in the final operating weeks — what gets drained, what gets purged, what is left charged — move decommissioning cost more than any contractor selection that follows.

Read →

What actually determines whether a relocated production line runs again

Projects

11 December 20257 min read

What actually determines whether a relocated production line runs again

Mechanical reassembly to original tolerance is the part everyone plans for. The control system documentation is the part that decides whether the line makes parts.

Read →

Sustainability

5 November 20255 min read

Diversion rates that survive an audit

Most reported diversion figures cannot be traced back to a weighbridge ticket. Here is what a defensible number requires, and why building it changes site behaviour more than reporting it does.

Read →

The interface plan is the deliverable that protects your production

Safety

16 October 20256 min read

The interface plan is the deliverable that protects your production

Demolishing beside a running plant is not primarily a demolition problem. It is an interface problem, and it is solved by putting the client's operations team inside the planning structure rather than alongside it.

Read →

Technical notes, sent when they exist.

Subscribe via the form in the footer. We publish when a programme produces something worth writing down — typically six to nine times a year.

Request a Consultation

Capabilities

Notes from live industrial programmes.

Filter by discipline.

The load path in your drawings is not the load path in your structure

Why cold cutting is a programme decision, not a safety preference

Taking down 120 metres of concrete beside an energised 220 kV switchyard

Recovery value is decided in the first hour of handling

Stop-work authority is either unconditional or it does not exist

Your decommissioning cost is largely fixed before the plant stops running

What actually determines whether a relocated production line runs again

Diversion rates that survive an audit

The interface plan is the deliverable that protects your production

Technical notes, sent when they exist.