What is FME?

Increasingly the world is filled with acronyms, due in part to the unrelenting overflow of  information entering our noggins.  Certain industries are given to acronym utilization more than others.  When you combine the spheres of military and engineering, such as in the nuclear power generation industry, the acronyms take on meaning in and of themselves and many people eventually displace the original meanings.

Many of you who read this will already be acquainted with FME.  For you who are new to the terminology, I hope this gives you glimpse into the acronym and for everyone else, at least establish a common foundation of understanding.  FME seems pretty specific to me and I thought, “How many meanings could there be?”  Google FME and you will find many variants.  It can stand for a host of business and organizational names as well as many different meanings: Forensic Medical Examiner, Free Market Economy or Fugitive Methane Emissions (which sounds like a problem I occasionally encounter after eating burritos).

FME in my world means Foreign Material Exclusion: keeping stuff out of THERE that’s not supposed to be in THERE.  So this begs the question, “Where’s THERE?”  Within the context of power generation (the nuclear power industry reportedly coined the FME discipline) it means keeping stuff from entering critical equipment during maintenance cycles that is foreign to that equipment.  This is especially true of the fuel pool, condenser, generator, high pressure turbine, low pressure turbine, exciter, but also pumps, filters, valves, coolers, reservoirs, pipes and tubes.  What kind of “stuff” are we trying to keep out of these places?

Since at least 2008, the nuclear power industry has increased awareness, training and implementation of FME procedures to reduce unscheduled outage time and unplanned maintenance issues.  Ideally, the only time that a plant stops generating electricity is when the operators refuel.  Unfortunately, when foreign stuff (and this is just a fraction of all the ”stuff” that can become foreign material) like loose nuts, bolts, washers, wire, plastic, pens, shavings, dust, personal jewelery, broken components, tools and even the FME barriers themselves remain inside a machine after it is closed up, it can be extremely detrimental to the operation of that and other machines and have big, expensive consequences.

Therefore our purpose, our existence, our piercing focus as a business is to be sure that foreign materials are excluded from all critical areas which are under our control… we are FME.

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