Quest Consulting Ltd, in collaboration with the University of Aberdeen, has won a Millennium Product Award. The presentation was made by Anne Begg, MP for Aberdeen South, at Elphinstone Hall, Old Aberdeen, on Friday, .
The award was given for a product called Questar, a risk assessment protocol for offshore structures. This resulted from a two-year Teaching Company Scheme between Quest Consulting Ltd and the University. The same project won an earlier award, presented in 1997 by the Royal Academy of Engineering for engineering excellence.
Questar is the Quest targeting method for focusing inspection to the areas of greatest risk on an offshore structure. This is particularly challenging and novel as it can increase the inspection interval on oil and gas production platforms and, therefore, substantially improve operating costs.
Quest Managing Director Ken Woolley said: “We are very pleased with this award. We have used the product to strengthen considerably our export sales, particularly in SE Asia and Australia. We continue to invest in Questar development and now apply the technique to process plant, pipelines and subsea facilities.”
Professor Mike Baker led the technology transfer project for the University. He chairs the Safety Engineering Unit of the University’s Engineering Department, which was established in 1991 in the aftermath of the Piper Alpha disaster.
He said: “We are particularly pleased with the award in true recognition of a very successful Teaching Company Scheme (TCS) with Quest Consulting. We believe this is the first TCS project in Scotland to achieve Millennium Product status. The project fully identifies the importance of carrying out risk assessment of facilities on a sound scientific basis.”
Anne Begg, who recently completed her first year as an MP for the new Labour Government, said: “The Millennium Product scheme is administered by the Design Council on behalf of the Government. Awards are given to innovative products and services that demonstrate the best of British ingenuity and invention.
“I am pleased to make this presentation to Quest Consulting Ltd, one of only 10 awards in Scotland, the second in Grampian”
Photocall: You are invited to send a photographer and/or journalist to the presentation at Noon on Friday, 11 September , at the Linklater Rooms, Elphinstone Hall, Old Aberdeen.
Note to Editors:
Quest Consulting Ltd is a privately-owned engineering consultancy group specialising in the development, planning and management of the inspection of steel and concrete structures, pipelines, FPSO’s, subsea installations and onshore facilities. It was formed in 1989, and has offices in Aberdeen and Perth, Australia. It employs 25 people and, in 1997, was awarded an engineering excellence prize by the Royal Academy of Engineering at the Teaching Company Scheme awards. Quest was commended in the 1998 Scottish 0ffshore Achievement Awards for consistent growth and engineering excellence.
The Teaching Company Scheme (TCS) is a Government-assisted scheme designed to help companies make strategic advances through the transfer of knowledge or technology from the University sector into the commercial sector.
Further information:
Ken Woolley, Managing Director, Quest Consulting Ltd, Tel: (01224) 212891
Christine Cook, Director of Public Relations, University of Aberdeen, Tel: (01224) 272014