Dee Moreau
Mechanical Engineer
Montreal, QC
Mechanical Engineer with over 12 years of experience in the chemical manufacturing industry, currently a Senior Mechanical Engineer at a leading Canadian producer of specialty chemicals and industrial polymers. Born and raised in Montreal’s vibrant Plateau-Mont-Royal neighborhood, I developed an early fascination with how machines and systems operate under demanding conditions. I have Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from Polytechnique Montréal in 2012, graduating with distinction, and later completed a Master’s in Industrial Process Optimization from McGill University in 2016. Currently leads the design, maintenance, and optimization of critical mechanical systems that support high-volume chemical production. My expertise spans packaging machinery, rotating equipment (pumps, compressors, and agitators), pressure vessels, heat exchangers, and piping systems operating in corrosive and high-temperature environments. Main focus is implementing reliability-centered maintenance programs that have reduced unplanned downtime by 28% across multiple production lines while improving safety performance. I am passionate about mentoring young engineers and promoting sustainable manufacturing practices.
Chemical Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Industrial, Manufacturing, Petroleum
Industrial Manufacturing
Petrochemical
Process Engineering
Professional Background
12 years
PE, PMP
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Technical Interests & Expertise
Mechanical Engineer
Profile is not yet complete
Spent my morning digging through HMI fault logs again. Another pump seal roasted because the unit started with the discharge closed and the seal flush blocked in. Well, there’s your problem. I keep hearing that we’ll train the operators and update the SOP. My answer is the same as always: just interlock it.We added simple permissives: no start unless discharge valve proof open, seal flush pressure proven, suction strainer DP below limit, and the VFD will not ramp if NPSHa proxy is low. Trips lat...
Lunch in the HMI fault log, nights with prep guides. Exams love perfect systems; plants give sticky valves, wet instrument air, and deadtime. The real answer starts with "well, there's your problem" and ends with whether the interlock actually catches it.Biggest ROI here: Vibration Cat I, proper LOTO refresh, and ISA 18.2 alarm rationalization. That cut nuisance alarms more than any feature. API 570 helped with corrosion and intervals. P.Eng ethics mattered, but not for taming a c...
An alarm is not a control. If a piece of equipment can eat itself in under a minute, no operator is going to save it with an acknowledge button. We designed it that way, then we blame ops for “not reacting.” That’s on us.Example: a transfer pump kept losing bearings every few weeks. Suction strainer blinded, HMI threw low suction and high vibration. Night shift throttled a valve and hoped. Pump still cavitated to death. Well, there’s your problem. We added a DP across the strainer, blocked start...
We added rooftop solar and a 1 MW battery to shave peaks at our packaging line. Finance loved the payback. I got the alarms. First warm day, inverters tripped on overvoltage when the utility sneezed, the battery chased frequency, and our VFDs threw DC bus overvoltage. Well, there’s your problem: no coordinated limits, loose CT calibration, and zero hardwired interlocks to hold process steady while the microgrid hiccupped.Everyone talks carbon, few talk harmonics, fault ride-through, and where th...
Another night, HMI lit up, transfer pump 2 tripping on vibration and high motor current. Ops says the pump’s fine. Found the suction strainer 70% plugged, tank level borderline, and the discharge block valve halfway shut from the last swapover. Well, there’s your problem.The fix wasn’t heroics. We added three things: low-low tank level start permissive with a debounce, discharge valve open proof as a run permissive, and a suction pressure interlock that ramps the VFD down before tripping. Also c...
Spent last night babysitting an alarm flood on a feed pump start. HMI lit up like a pinball machine: low suction pressure, seal pot low, motor overload warm, min-flow not proven, discharge low-flow… Operators were riding ACK like it was a solution. Well, there’s your problem: five alarms screaming about one condition - no NPSH at cold start.The fix wasn’t more alarms. We added permissives: no start unless tank level > X, suction block proved open, min-flow valve open limit made, and VFD ramp...
We bolted a 500 kW air source heat pump onto our compressor hall to reclaim waste heat and preheat process water. Looked great on paper: COP>3, gas boiler idle, finance smiling.Then January hit. Defrost cycles and low ambient turned that COP into a rumor. The preheat loop starved, operators flipped it to hand, and the HMI lit up like a pinball machine. Well, there's your problem: no buffer storage, no setpoint authority, and no interlock to shed noncritical loads when the heat pump fell...
Had a lovely 2 am chorus of LOW FLOW, LOW SUCTION, SEAL POT LOW until the pump finally ate itself. Root cause wasn’t exotic. Valve proving was disabled for flexibility, min-flow bypass cracked shut, and we let a chattery transmitter spam the HMI. Well, there’s your problem.We ran a one-day cleanup: added time delays and hysteresis on noisy PVs, moved FYI items to advisories, latched true trips, and put starts behind hard permissives: suction > X, min-flow proved open, seal pot > Y. Also se...
We tied 1.6 MW of rooftop PV and a small BESS into an old manufacturing plant. Day one, the HMI turned into a Christmas tree. Cooling water and compressor VFDs started throwing DC bus under or overvoltage and ground fault alarms whenever clouds rolled through or the BESS switched modes. Well, there’s your problem: nobody budgeted for power quality in a brownfield.Fix list: line reactors and DC chokes on the sensitive drives, proper bonding and a clean ground bar, notch filters for harmonics, and...
I get asked how to prep for CMRP or P.Eng. by folks on shift. My answer annoys them: close the test bank and open your cause and effect matrix. If you cannot trace a trip from a high vibe alarm to the motor contactor, then follow the relief path on the P&ID, well, there is your problem. Exams check boxes. The plant checks your work.My study kit for any maintenance or reliability exam is the same: current P&IDs, alarm rationalization sheets, control narratives, a couple vendor manuals, an...