Engineering a great career
About 95% of all UK imports and exports are transported by sea, with our busy ports contributing around £7.7 billion value to our economy. As one of our deep sea ports, capable of handling today’s supersized cargo and container ships, the Port of Southampton sees an average of 33 million tonnes of goods pass through it each year. The Port of Southampton includes the second largest container terminal in the UK, operated by DP World, the global logistics business. And it takes a whole range of skills and people to keep such a busy terminal running. We catch up with two of their team.
Luke Oates and Shane Dunkason are both former engineering apprentices, now working in senior engineering roles at DP World Southampton. We asked them what part they play in the smooth running of the container terminal, and how they got where they are today.
What is your job now? Luke: I’m a Planned Maintenance Engineer but my primary focus is on reliability, looking at things like preventing equipment breakdowns before they occur. You can imagine how costly it would be if, say, one of our huge quayside container cranes stopped working and were unable to unload a ship! My current role is a new position where I can use cutting edge technology to help detect problems with our equipment such as ultrasound, vibration and thermography. For example, by the time you can hear a bearing in an engine making a funny noise, it’s likely done some damage and you’ll probably have to strip it all to replace any damaged parts. However, if I can use ultrasound to detect unusual noises even before you can hear them with the human ear, we can probably solve the problem before it does unnecessary damage.
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I learnt about lean manufacturing techniques on my degree and I was always interested to see how it might apply in engineering. Now, I’m in a position to implement some of those ideas.
Shane: I’m one of two Asset Managers here; I look after our quayside cranes and various other equipment on site while my opposite number is responsible for our fleet of straddle carriers. After my apprenticeship, I stepped up to supervise a planned maintenance shift. That lead to the opportunity to oversee the build of two new quayside container cranes in 2018 – a fairly rare opportunity – dealing with colleagues, contractors and an assortment of planning and scheduling issues. In 2019, I was given the opportunity to become a Scheduling Engineer, planning our maintenance priorities on all our equipment. Not long after that, DP World Southampton had a bit of a restructure and the Asset Manager roles were created, so I applied for one. I get to work quite closely with Luke as he comes up with initiatives that our maintenance teams need to implement. It feels like we’re pushing ahead with things and I enjoy the challenge of setting up new systems and processes.
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