A refinery turnaround is a complex, all-hands- on-deck event that the very best turnaround managers have down to a science.
But as industry pressures continue to accumulate alongside tight timelines and budgets, every minute - and every dollar - counts.
One area of opportunity to find additional cost savings for many refineries is to lean on telematics technology. Turnaround managers can use telematics to track equipment and increase its utilization, properly maintain assets, and make smarter purchasing and rental decisions.
Many turnaround managers end up overspending by keeping rented equipment longer than necessary, underutilizing equipment they own or rent, and maintaining equipment before maintenance is needed. Equipment with telematics provides remote monitoring of machines and vehicles, collecting and sending data on equipment usage, performance and maintenance needs.
With telematics, refinery managers can learn mostly everything they want to know about equipment, such as location, number of operating hours, operator behavior and amount of fuel consumed. This data can be used by equipment management software to help contractors manage their owned and rental fleet, including excavators, loaders, aerial work platforms and more.
Here are five ways refinery managers and turnaround teams can leverage telematics data to operate more safely and productively.
- Track equipment location. Equipment has a way of sometimes hiding, especially in large plants. A skid steer may be parked in the wrong place, or someone could be "holding" a boom lift in case it is needed again. Work can stop when crews need to search for essential equipment that is missing.
Telematics systems equipped with GPS tracking can be integrated with equipment management software to locate machines on a map in real time. This visibility can stop time-consuming hunts for equipment and help managers right-size their fleets.
- Reduce equipment theft and "borrowing." When equipment is sitting idle during a downtime, it can be vulnerable to thieves or perhaps tempt crew members to make unauthorized use. GPS tracking and geofencing can prevent these situations. Plant managers can use fleet management software to improve security by drawing a geofence or specific area the machine should stay within. An alert can be set in the system to notify the plant manager if the machine exits that virtual boundary.
- Boost utilization. Rental equipment often makes up a significant project or turnaround expense. By identifying the utilization of each unit, equipment telematics helps contractors manage the fine line between renting too little equipment and renting too much.
Telematics devices provide a wide range of useful engine data, including engine hours. By running a utilization report in a fleet management app, a plant or turnaround manager can quickly see how many hours the machine was used in the past day, several days, week or month. Knowing equipment utilization helps managers understand how much equipment is needed for jobs, guiding purchase and rental decisions.
- Benchmark performance against industry peers. Scoring equipment utilization against industry benchmarks can identify areas to enhance efficiency and calculate the financial gain that can be realized. Any equipment rental supplier should be able to provide data about how its equipment is utilized by market segment, job type and equipment specification. Benchmarking provides an avenue for refineries to rank every piece of rental equipment across their projects, gauging utilization and days past due against industry norms.
- Gain preventive maintenance efficiencies. Operators and managers can use telematics data about equipment and vehicles to determine when maintenance tasks are needed rather than scheduling maintenance based on miles or time driven. This just-in-time maintenance means a plant manager is not over- or under-scheduling shop time. Data-based maintenance can also help fleet managers better forecast maintenance budgets. The information can be tapped into by an equipment maintenance service provider, supporting a company with a proactive, automated program of preventive maintenance and inspections customized to its specific needs.
For more information, visit www.unitedrentals.com or call (833) 407-3774.
