Each year, the owners of refining and petrochemical facilities spend millions of dollars on the planning and execution of their shutdowns, turnarounds and outages (STOs). Most industry experts agree planning costs typically represent 8-12 percent of the STO's overall budget. Not only do these events represent a significant investment in materials, equipment and manpower, but they can also have a negative impact on a company's financial performance, especially if they're not done in accordance with best practices or executed poorly. Poor execution means project delays.
Over the years, operators have come to recognize the importance of applying best practices to the planning and scheduling phase of an STO. Unfortunately, fully identifying the critical path of a project and the supportive plans needed to reach that objective will not in itself ensure the project will be completed successfully. Today, operators who conduct project analysis reviews are realizing a key factor contributing to project delays is the departure from or nonadherence to the project schedule during the execution phase.
STOs are complex events that epitomize the importance of communication. Even when communication lines are clearly established, some stakeholders in the project may not have the necessary system access. When this occurs, operational decisions made during a reporting interval could result in the introduction of project inefficiencies and departures from a project's critical path. In addition to system access issues, other factors that commonly contribute to execution failures include a lack of worker training or familiarity with the system being used, organizational unfamiliarity, delays in the communication of work status, ineffective allocation of resources, poor handoffs during shift changes and a general erosion of confidence in the schedule.
As more operators recognize poor execution can nullify the investment made in planning, new approaches are being evaluated and implemented to ensure turnaround objectives remain on track and financial risks are mitigated.
One of the new methods garnering a high level of attention from owners seeking to improve project execution is the implementation of the digital command and control solution. Generally offered as a turnkey service, these systems require the installation of execution software that allows for real-time updates of work status to the execution management personnel. By radically simplifying and speeding up the retrieval of accurate data, execution coordinators are in a position to confirm not only that schedule alignment is being properly maintained, but also that workforce resources are optimized. Once in place, this execution management program continuously scans the schedule for problems that will impact critical path and highlights those problems for users to investigate.
Additional benefits of digital command and control solutions include:
- Measurable improvements in productivity.
- Critical path awareness and improved decision making.
- Replacement of paper schedules with web-accessible schedules that reflect realtime work status.
- A trusted work status available to field control personnel on demand.
- Significant reduction in keyboard time for foremen and schedulers.
- Access to electronic work packages.
- Automated alerts that notify field personnel as relevant jobs are started, progressed or completed.
- Resource optimization based on realtime visibility of work status.
The complex nature of STOs will always represent a challenge for all parties involved in the process. Overall, the companies who routinely manage these complex events are clearly making significant improvements through their investments in planning and adherence to best practices. The technology available with digital command and control represents a major step forward in improving how STOs will be managed in the future.
For more information, contact Tracy Provenzano at (281) 842-8333 or tprovenzano@kap.us.com.
