Ashley obtained his Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Natal in Durban, South Africa in 1993. In 1996 he joined Wearcheck Africa, a commercial oil analysis laboratory headquartered in Durban, as a Diagnostician. As well as interpreting the lab results, Ashley also helped his customers set up and maintain their oil analysis programs. In 2001 Wearcheck and ABB South Africa, a supplier of condition-monitoring services to industry, entered into a strategic partnership. He took the opportunity to join ABB as their Senior Diagnostician, focussing on industrial machinery.

Ashley is also ICML Level I and Level II MLA, Level I MLT certified and is a Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professional (CMRP).

During his seven years with Wearcheck Africa and ABB South Africa, Ashley diagnosed approximately one quarter of a million oil samples, ranging from ships, trucks, locomotives and earthmoving machinery to turbines, hydraulics and gearboxes. He has had wide exposure to a number of industries, such as sugar refining, pulp and paper, opencast and underground mining, aluminium smelting, oil and gas, and power generation.

Ashley’s first direct exposure to Noria came after attending the Oil Analysis I and II courses at ABB. Shortly thereafter he took over the responsibility of presenting their courses on many occasions over three years. Ashley has presented training courses ranging from on-site, hands-on courses on how to take samples, to four-day seminars targeted at senior maintenance personnel.

Ashley has been published by the South African Mechanical Engineer, Noria Corporation and Wearcheck Africa.

Now resident in Philadelphia, PA, he has joined Noria Reliability Solutions as a Technical Consultant, and looks forward to helping his new customers effectively attain their maintenance goals.