Turnarounds (TAs) are complex, labor-intensive, strategic events executed to maximize the availability and efficiency of a plant's assets. They must be conducted under strict time constraints with severe financial repercussions for any delays. These massive undertakings can include an influx of 1,000-plus contractors with an excess of 100,000 individual activities. These intricate challenges can be further exacerbated by severe weather conditions or significant potential scope changes that may arise due to unanticipated discovery issues. To solve these challenges, TA leadership needs to proactively identify, process and comprehend critical information to act quickly. Simply put, they need to achieve real-time situational awareness to be prepared and minimize unexpected safety and operational risks.
Situational awareness is a mindset the military deeply ingrains into its service members, but its benefits extend far beyond the battlefield. The Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization manuals define situational awareness as the degree of accuracy to which one's perception of the current environment mirrors reality. It is a cognitive skill that includes being conscious of what is happening around you, continuously checking perceptions against reality and the related continuous flow of information, and predicting the immediate and future impact of your own or your team's actions, including anticipating complications. TA leadership can enhance their real-time situational awareness by leveraging the concept of the OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) loop:
- Observe. At this initial stage, TA leadership needs to capture as much incoming data, direct and indirect, as possible. TA leadership will conduct daily TA meetings to create visibility for their current perceptions and predictions of the current TA execution status. But they also must get out into the field to perform multiple "gut checks" daily, remain on alert for new information and be aware of unfolding circumstances. The more information they can take in, the more accurate their perceptions will be. This also requires strong and immediate communications with the right people at the right time.
- Orient. This stage is a vibrant "melting pot" where new information and existing knowledge are combined to produce an updated model of the current TA execution status. It's critical TA leadership know what information they're looking for and then put that information into context so it has meaning and becomes actionable. By applying context to the data, they create situational awareness; data becomes meaningful information, which then leads to their decisions.
- Decide. This stage is about weighing multiple options and alternatives and selecting a subsequent plan of action. These are essentially educated guesses based on the TA leadership's knowledge (or sometimes lack thereof) and previous experiences. Thus, these decisions should be considered fluid works in progress, ready to be amended as new information is received. In order for decisions to be timely and accurate for the situation, communications must be precise and in real time.
- Act. The decision is executed. The ability to act quickly is what can separate a successful TA execution from a failed one. Unfortunately, this can be a difficult stage for TA leadership since they may get caught up in analyzing as much data as possible to craft an ideal decision before enacting it, which can lead to a state of paralysis by analysis.
- Repeat. This is a repeatable and cyclical process with the aim of continuous improvement. TA leadership must continuously collect and analyze feedback and make adjustments to their decisions and actions as needed until the desired results are achieved. This implies communications must be continuous, accurate and conveyed to the right people at the right time.
TA leadership must ruthlessly prioritize and monitor daily TA execution activities, but also be dynamic enough to adapt to safely and effectively drive productivity. They require instant, accurate and complete visibility into all the variables and relationships such that immediate insight can be gained and corrective actions implemented as required. They need real-time situational awareness.
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