The effect of a changing climate: Insights from the CEO, with Nick Koiza
- Smart Comp Tech
- 16 minutes ago
- 3 min read
In this Insights from the CEO, Nick Koiza, CEO of Smart Component Technologies (SCT), talks about how critical infrastructure in the UK and globally is being affected by a changing climate.
Autumn is well underway here in the UK, bringing with it the usual concerns: storms, rain, and the risks of flooding and erosion. But these seasonal worries are now part of a much bigger picture, as climate change reshapes the global risk landscape for operators of essential infrastructure.
From rail networks to mining operations, energy installations and beyond, we’re now seeing extreme weather events that challenge even the most robust infrastructure and maintenance practices. We're seeing rails buckle during unprecedented heatwaves, mining equipment compromised by extreme vibration in harsh conditions, and industrial installations facing temperature cycling that pushes materials to their limits. Much of this infrastructure was built decades ago when climate patterns were very different, and it's struggling to keep up.
Legacy infrastructure under pressure
Take rail networks as a prime example. Rail buckling has become one of the most serious climate-related issues we face. In extreme temperatures – it can reach 50 degrees Celsius in regions such as the Middle East – steel rails can buckle suddenly and catastrophically. Unlike gradual wear and tear that you can plan for, thermal buckling can happen with little warning, creating immediate safety risks. Traditional, regular visual inspections just can't account for this.
It's not just heat, either. We're seeing more frequent flooding, soil erosion, and ground instability. Rainy seasons that used to be fairly predictable now see water dumped in intense bursts, overwhelming drainage systems and compromising the ground beneath tracks. In exposed coastal areas such as the well-known line through Dawlish in the UK, the challenges are even greater – extreme weather combined with rising sea levels creates maintenance headaches across vast and sometimes remote stretches of infrastructure.
In mining environments, the challenges are equally severe. Remote sites in Australia and other regions are facing increasingly extreme temperature variations, adding to the challenges of intense vibration, and exposure to sand and dust. These harsh conditions can cause bolts to loosen on critical equipment like iron ore hoppers, creating safety risks and operational disruptions. The combination of heavy loads and climate extremes puts enormous strain on infrastructure components.
Why reactive maintenance doesn't cut it anymore…
The traditional approach to maintenance – identifying issues during inspections or fixing things after they break – just isn't working in our changing climate. Manual visual inspections, often carried out in challenging conditions, can't catch the early warning signs of climate-induced problems. By the time issues become visible to engineers, the damage is often severe, at best requiring unplanned shutdowns and expensive emergency repairs or, worse, causing a safety incident.
The financial implications extend beyond direct repair costs, too. Rail infrastructure owners in certain countries have to pay substantial penalties to train operating companies if their services are disrupted – even when that results in only short periods of delay. In mining and energy, unplanned downtime can halt entire operations. With more climate-related failures causing disruptions, the costs spiral quickly: emergency repairs, production losses, safety incidents, and reputational damage that can be hard to restore.
… and why continuous monitoring changes everything
Today, more infrastructure providers than ever are moving to predictive maintenance. They’re using decision support tools like SWIX, our end-to-end remote condition monitoring solution for predicting and preventing asset failure, and Smart Washer, a solution that monitors critical bolts and fastenings to predict and prevent joint failures. These solutions use Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to continuously monitor critical elements in your installations, sending data to our platform for analysis.
They’re game-changing solutions – instead of hoping to spot problems during periodic inspections, you get real-time visibility into how your infrastructure responds to weather events. You can see how extreme temperatures affect specific locations, or monitor the gradual deterioration of key infrastructure elements, or identify assets that are becoming vulnerable to flooding or ground instability – and more.
The data doesn't just identify problems, it predicts them. Our machine learning algorithms analyse deterioration patterns over time, so you can schedule maintenance before failures occur, significantly reducing the cost and impact of issues. Perhaps most importantly, our solutions help you to work out if the measures you’ve implemented are actually working. Real-time readings show immediately if the intervention has resolved the underlying issue.
The changing climate will continue to bring us challenges, but with the right technology in place, operators can face them with confidence. If you recognise the challenges in this article, please do get in touch to see how we can help.
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