Anyone who has spent time in the refinery or petrochemical industry knows plant owners and operators allocate millions of dollars for shutdowns, turnarounds and outages (STOs) each year. Not only do these projects represent significant upfront costs for owners because of the material, equipment and manpower required, but they can also impact financial performance at both the site and corporate levels when delays hinder a facility from returning to full operational capacity.
We in this industry pay a lot of attention, deservedly, to the amount of revenue that stands to be lost on a daily basis. These daily revenue losses in most cases are determined by the facility size, material produced and overall capacity of the operation. Additionally, other backend costs may be incurred when these delays impact existing contractual obligations or future agreements. All STOs must be recognized as expensive, complex and high-risk events that demand significant time and investment.
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 required will not, in itself, assure projects will be completed on time. More often than not, operators who conduct project analysis reviews are realizing a key factor contributing to a project's delay 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 needed 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 workers not being trained or familiar with the system being used, organizational unfamiliarity, delays in communication of work status, ineffective allocation of resources, poor handoffs during shift changes and the 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 intact and financial risks are mitigated.
One of the new methods garnering a high level of attention by owners to improve project execution is the implementation of the digital command and control solution. Generally offered as turnkey services, 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 maintained but 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 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 on demand to field control personnel.
- 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 to 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 associated or 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.