Biography

With technical education in mechanics, a BS in metallurgical engineering, a master in sciences degree in technology and specializations in quality engineering, strategic administration, and MBA in leadership and people management; lean six sigma master black belt training, certified reliability professional and certified reliability engineer; 9 years experience as inspection, integrity and reliability engineer and coordinator in an Amazon gas and oil producing unit, as well as 4 years as manager of the inspection, integrity and reliability function of the largest offshore exploration business unit in Brazil, plus one year as offshore prosecutor.

From 2003 to 2012 Alexandre has worked in a oil production and exploration base in the Amazon Jungle as an integrity engineer and reliability engineer, in charge of 14 technicians and around 2000 pieces of equipment. During that time he has developped fitness for use analyses using BS-7910, API-579 and software crackwise for pressure vessels, pipes and other static equipment, coordinated inspection tasks and three general maintenance stops.

He has implemented remaining life analysis process for corrosion, creep and crack propagation for 2000 plant equipment that was followed by technicians. Some special cases were developped, like evaluation and control of corrosion-erosion of choke valves optimizing scheduled substitution.

He has conducted the first life data analysis on safety valves in Brazil, which resulted in the optimization of inspection intervals for over 600 valves, resulting in 30% efficiency gain. During that time it was also proved that some valves actually failed at random. The causal analysis of this phenomena led to improving process controls.

Alexandre has also evaluated CO2 corrosion on well pipes, using degradation data and NORSOK M-506 standard, which led to recommendation of technology change to be adopted company-wide.

Alexandre has developed analysis on pump failure data due to incrustration, resulting in the recommendation of changes in the process of  US$10.000, leading to increased availability of the system and lower maintenance costs. The alternative proposed by the dynamics team using classic mechanical engineering approach would result in higher investment and increased maintenance cost.

Alexandre has coordinated corrective maintenance and inspection of a large Aluminium Brazed Plate Fin Heat Exchanger, including failure analysis, contracting of vendor and specialized repair teams. Later he has counseled the project for the new BPFHE and conducted fabrication inspection in Japan.

From 2012 to 2016, he was invited to develop and manage the inspection team of the second largest and most productive business unit in Brazil, directly responsible for 20% of national oil production. Managing a team of over 100 personnel, 60% of which offshore, over 13 Installation. After four years he had created the hierarchical structure composed of coordinators and supervisors, developed new skills, software and standardization, reduced costs and improving efficiency by 30% and raised business indicators to the best historical level.

During this period he started a lean six sigma project to study inspection time and business process losses which was the main base for changing team culture and organization.

He proposed and managed a three stage study of over 6000 safety valves to determine the ideal inspection interval, stock replenishment politic, and also to determine which brands and models were more reliable for subsequent standardization. The study required the compilation of data from thousands of reports, the development of a fault tree analysis, Pareto analysis and life data statistical analysis, and subsequent scheduling of the new inspection strategy.