The Early Failure Detection Centre has been awarded their largest single contract yet from the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) to continue to process fluid samples from the British Army fleet of land vehicles.
The Early Failure Detection Centre will continue to test oil, fuel and coolant samples on a regular basis from over 1,500 Land vehicles in the British Army fleet. This now means that the UK MoD and British Army can take advantage of the Machine Care Plus® service and secure communications network to receive critical fleet information much faster than previously.
The UK MoD described the tender submission as being “very impressive, both commercially and technically” and upon the award of the contract the Early Failure Detection Centre Manger has commented: “AES continues to be the recognised provider of fluid analysis services to the UK MoD Land forces and has a strong track record in this field that can be traced back to 1995. This latest contract award highlights our commitment to expanding the Defence business and gives the strongest indication yet to the market place that we are leading our field and fully committed to providing a fast, high quality and cost effective service across the whole of the market.”
BAE Systems has awarded AES a 1 year contract extension for the provision of oil sampling and analysis services in support of the TERRIER® Armoured Engineer Vehicle, prototype and demonstrator vehicles. Terrier® is the replacement for the Combat Engineer Tractor (CET).
AES has been contracted to continue providing technical support and assistance to BAE Systems through the provision of the Machine Care Plus® early failure detection service which is based upon the analysis of engine, transmission and hydraulic oil samples, and equipment usage data. The TERRIER® Armoured Engineer Vehicles undergoing trials and development benefit from readily available and comprehensive information, which is produced using AES expert decision support software and the experience of ex-military technical staff.
Oil samples are taken and operating parameters recorded by the equipment crews to provide the raw data for analysis by AES. Once the data has been processed and interpreted condition assessments and remedial actions are made available to the project manager and key personnel via a secure data dial-up telephone connection.
It is extremely important to identify potential design or operating problems at an early stage, by gathering as much data as possible, which is then analysed to identify trends or anomalies. The Original Equipment Manufacturer specialists are then able to conduct additional physical checks to confirm the significance of these occurrences, and if necessary take action to prevent the situation re-occurring. In an extreme case, a system might require to be enhanced or re-designed and the same process that assisted in the identification of the problem can be used to confirm the remedial action has been successful.
AES software development staff have also assisted BAE Systems Reliability Engineers by writing a software application to efficiently process TERRIER® HUMS (Health and usage monitoring Systems) data. The application organises large amounts of equipment data into a more usable format. It is very flexible and can be adopted to process a varying range of parameters which can then be linked to the oil analysis and usage data.
It is envisaged that the information gained and lessons learnt during the TERRIER® trials will be used to support the production vehicles once introduced into service. This means that a ‘Condition Based’ service and proactive maintenance regime can be used to ensure maximum availability and reduce equipment support costs.
The Royal Army of Oman (RAO) has awarded AES a 3 year extension to their Machine Care Plus® contract for the provision of oil sampling and analysis services. In addition, the scope of the contract has also been increased and now includes support for Challenger 2 (CR2) Main Battle Tank (MBT), Challenger Armoured Repair and Recovery Vehicle (CRARRV), M60 MBT, G6 Self-Propelled Howitzer and Piranha Armoured Personnel Carrier .
The third PathoSys® user group meeting was held at the Lincoln County Hospital Pathology Department.
The meeting was kindly hosted by Path Links the Lincolnshire Pathology Network.
The meeting was well attended with representatives from:
Derbyshire
Lincolnshire
Merseyside
Manchester
Tyneside
Minutes of the meeting will be distributed in due course and the next user group meeting will be advertised when a venue and date is fixed.
About PathLinks
Path Links is a County Wide Pathology Service for Lincolnshire, delivering Pathology to two major Trusts, United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (ULHT), and Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Trust (NLG).
On the 9th of February 2009 the pathology reporting PathoSys® went live at Newcastle.
The Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust which provides services across six sites, incorporating the Freeman Hospital, the Royal Victoria Infirmary and the Newcastle General Hospital.
The Trust provides services for a local population of around 500,000 (approx 3 million for tertiary services) and handles approximately 57,000 histology requests each year.
This is part of the NEwPath (North East Wide Pathology) Network Project which includes:
City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust
Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust
Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
The pathology reporting system PathoSys® has been installed at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle as part of the implementation for the NEwPath Network.
It is expected that the Trusts from the network will begin going live with the system in early 2009 following connectivity testing between the sites and user training.
NEwPath Network
The NEwPath pathology network is made up of the following Trusts:
AES Medical and iSoft have successfully remotely tested the interface between the iLab (Apex) system and PathoSys® at the Newcastle Royal Victoria Infirmary.
This paves the way for further on site testing and implementation of the PathoSys® system in the new year.
PathoSys® is a registered trademark of Advanced Expert Systems Ltd.
NHS workforce statistics* indicate that following a successful year 2008, the pathology reporting system PathoSys® is now licenced for 1 in 7 pathologists in NHS England.
AES Medical aims to build on this fantastic acheivement in 2009.
PathoSys® users Cancer Peer Review reports are highlighting PathoSys® as good practice due to its ability to electronically collect MDS information for search and audit.
This capability allows sites with PathoSys® to meet Cancer Standard 3D-104 and 3D-105 as laid out in the NHS Manual for Cancer Services 20041.
Peer Review National Report2
Between 2004 and 2007,163 pathology services were checked against 7 measures (standards shown below). The results of this are summarised in the National Cancer Peer Review Programme National Report. The National Report and Individual Peer Review reports are available to view online at CQuINS – The Cancer Quality Improvement Network System website.
Cancer Standards for Pathology
The cancer standards for Pathology are as follows:
3D-101 – CPA accreditation at least conditional level for all declared laboratories
3D-102 – Agreed policy for referral of specimens for a pathology review outside the service
3D-103 – Provision of MDT pathologist core members, for each MDT declared as part of the service
3D-104 – Reports for national minimum dataset should include required items
3D-105 – Electronic collection of national minimum dataset items
3D-106 – PSA protocol for the test methodology
3D-107 – National External QA Scheme for PSA testing
Enabling Compliance
PathoSys® enables compliance with Cancer Standard 3D-104 and our users are among the 15% (24 services) of Peer Reviewed sites that also meet pathology standard 3D-105 Electronic Collection of National Minimum Dataset items2.
References
1. NHS Manual for Cancer Services 2004. Department of Health.
2. National Report, National Cancer Peer Review Programme 2004-2007. National Cancer Action Team June 2008.
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