According to Brad Grieves, senior reliability engineer for Energy Transfer Partners, two realities must be considered in order for a company to achieve optimal safety.
"If we do not have a good, effective reliability integrity program, our facilities are not as safe as we think they are, and we're putting our personnel at greater risk," Grieves said.
The second reality Grieves mentioned is that, when an organization says safety is its first priority, it's not being entirely forthright.
"I don't care whose organization it is," Grieves said. "What's priority one? Making money. That only makes sense because if I'm not making money, I'm out of business.
"Safety is the top value," Grieves continued. "A value is different than a priority. A value is how we go about doing our business to make that money. It's something we internalize, then do."
In a presentation titled "Recognizing the Direct Effect a Reliability Program Has on an Efficient Process Safety Program" at the 9th Annual Chem/Petrochem and Refining Asset Reliability Conference held recently in Houston, Grieves explained some crucial components of reliability.
"It's got to be there when you need it, and when it is there, it's got to achieve 100 percent," he said. "If I've got a compressor that's running at only 70 percent, that's not a reliable piece of equipment."
Grieves added that reliability further mandates a facility have no unexpected failures.
"I know I'm going to have failures, but it's the unexpected failures that come up that cause the problems," he said.
Grieves said he believes reliability is linked to everything an organization is trying to accomplish. In order to achieve reliability, an all-inclusive reliability program must be established, he explained.
"If I want to maximize my safety program and work toward zero injuries, a good reliability program will help me do that," he said. "Maximize capacity, meet regulatory compliance, minimize downtime, lower production cost, improve customer service -- reliability will help you achieve all these goals. It's linked to all of them."
Recipe for reliability
A reliability program is made up of a number of different specific components, Grieves said.
"You can't just pick and choose what you want to do," he said. "It's a comprehensive sort of deal."
An ideal reliability program requires a high-quality work control system to document the work being done.
"That's also going to enhance my ability to plan and schedule. I've got to do things in a planned, scheduled manner," Grieves said.
The program also requires use of condition monitoring that includes predictive maintenance techniques, with specific processes developed and applied.
"Not only do I have to have procedures, but I also have to utilize them," he said. "There's no sense in having them and putting them on the shelf."
Grieves said root cause failure analyses must be performed to understand how to prevent a failure reoccurrence.
"I need to verify the components that I'm putting in my equipment," he said. "Root cause failure analysis helps me not only understand how to prevent a reoccurrence, but also to share with the rest of the organization so they don't have the same type of event."
Personnel must be properly trained in the use of their respective procedures and work activities, Grieves noted.
"And then we have to analyze operational and maintenance data to strive for continuous improvement," he said.
Grieves accentuated the reality that "complacency is the enemy."
"Our world can change in an instant. This is where this complacency thing comes in," Grieves concluded. "We need to learn from others as they experience events so we don't experience the same thing."
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