Since earning the 2015 Gold Safety Excellence Award from the Houston Business Roundtable, AltairStrickland executives were asked to reflect on their 40-year journey to becoming one of the safest and highly sought-after mechanical contractors in the U.S.
For many refiners, having to schedule a turnaround or outage occurs, perhaps, twice every 10 years or so. When it does, it’s usually viewed with dread because of its expense, the time required and stress caused, and it’s usually planned years in advance. But for AltairStrickland, a leading turnaround services contactor, turnarounds and outages are its expertise, and navigating in a teamwork manner with clients through those complex scenarios is pretty standard fare. Because AltairStrickland averages 25 projects every year, the team is experienced in how to work through the many issues and challenges that result in getting clients back on line safely and quickly with a minimum of stress and expense.
“Our clients might see a turnaround once every five to seven years,” said Rick Ramirez, director of sales and marketing for AltairStrickland. “But we work on them every day.” So when Western Refining needed a major turnaround at its El Paso refinery, AltairStrickland was its natural choice and go-to to lead the project.
Jeff Webber, AltairStrickland’s president, points to the fact there is no better measure of the trust AltairStrickland enjoys with clients than they are routinely invited back to do more work after the initial engagement. In fact, over 75 percent of clients have worked with AltairStrickland on more than one job. Western Refining is no exception. The El Paso refinery turnaround was AltairStrickland’s fourth project for the independent Texas-based oil refiner and marketer. With a total crude output of 128,000 barrels per day, performing a turnaround at Western’s El Paso refinery was a complex project. But successfully executing these types of complicated projects — where the stakes are high and big money is on the line — is how AltairStrickland has built its reputation for success. It’s also one of the reasons Western Refining has been a longtime AltairStrickland customer.
AltairStrickland, a subsidiary of EMCOR Group Inc., was founded in 1976 as a generalized mechanical contracting firm. Since then, the company has evolved into one of the country’s premier authorities in process unit upgrades, revamps and turnarounds. For over three decades, the company has honed and expanded its service offering and specializes in scheduled and emergency work on fluid catalytic cracking units (FCCUs), delayed coking units (DCUs) and ammonia units.
Champions of innovation
AltairStrickland’s focus on turnaround pre-planning and its innovative problem-solving make the company different from other contractors. Specifically, AltairStrickland is one of the few mechanical contractors to address constructability issues in the beginning of a project by participating in the early planning stages with clients. Importantly, this can result in safer, more cost-effective turnarounds. “Ours is a culture of innovation. We are not content to do things the way they have always been done,” said Webber. “We are fanatical about pre-planning and constructability studies. When a million pounds of steel is being hoisted from a million-dollar crane, that’s no time for costly surprises.”
Western’s openness at including AltairStrickland in the pre-planning stage was critical to the project’s success. “The most overlooked step in project execution is often the biggest budget buster and possible safety risk of all,” Ramirez said. “The failure to include the mechanical contractor in the pre-project planning and constructability review stages can end up costing millions of dollars or more in the long run.”
Project studies and analyses, lift engineering and rigging studies help ensure a safer, more cost-effective turnaround. AltairStrickland uses AutoCAD®, 3-D surveys, and even plywood and other materials to build models to explore virtually every conceivable what-if scenario to assess potential constructability issues before they become problems impacting safety, scheduling and budget.
A track record that makes clients return again and again
“AltairStrickland has provided safe, reliable service for Western Refining since 2004,” said Western Refining Director of Maintenance and Engineering Troy Champeaux. “They had performed three turnarounds for us prior to this one, including making repairs to the cat during a CO boiler replacement in 2011 and also for additional repairs in 2012.”
AltairStrickland’s work with Western Refining is a testament to how seriously AltairStrickland takes its pledge to executing safe, superior work; the turnaround was completed without any recordable injuries, on time and under budget. Western Refining sees AltairStrickland’s history of safety, quality and ability to manage multiple contractors under a tight schedule as another key reason Western hires AltairStrickland time and again.
“As the general contractor on the El Paso refinery project, AltairStrickland demonstrated its ability to manage and coordinate all companies and support contractors under its umbrella, so the project was successfully executed as a unified group,” Champeaux said.
A relationship built on safety and customer trust
Ramirez attributes AltairStrickland’s successful turnarounds to three capabilities: “Our complete and total focus on our customers’ needs, our ability to execute to bring projects in on time and on budget, and our focus on safety,” he said.
When it comes to safety, AltairStrickland’s philosophy is simple: Integrating safety, quality and productivity is the only way to provide the high-quality services its customers expect. Striving for an accident-free environment is a company-wide core value.
Ramirez cites safety as a primary benefit of clients selecting AltairStrickland. “We’re pioneering the way forward with our innovative industrial safety solutions and initiatives,” he said. “We have an unwavering commitment to the well-being of our customers and employees. The foundation is AltairStrickland’s ‘Tenants of Safety,’ which are ingrained in every person we employ. Everyone owns his or her part of our safety culture.” The tenants remind each employee continually that zero is always the goal — zero incidents, zero accidents, zero injuries.
Process driven with a focus on painstaking pre-planning
AltairStrickland’s overall safety record and history of safe turnarounds for previous Western Refining jobs were two keys to being awarded the El Paso refinery job. Another key factor was the shared belief AltairStrickland’s focus on pre-planning helps ensure a safer, more cost-effective turnaround. To this end, the El Paso refinery turnaround was eight months in the planning phase.
Robert Cooper, AltairStrickland’s senior project manager for the El Paso refinery project, said planning phases of this length are common for AltairStrickland. “Six to eight months is typical,” he said. “But it can be longer depending on how big and challenging the turnaround is. We also factor the number of units being worked on and just how complex the project is.”
The Western Refining project was technically demanding to coordinate and AltairStrickland was contracted to manage the group of subcontractors, which increased the need for meticulous planning. The subcontractors involved were responsible for refractory, crane and transport, scaffolding, heat-treating and hydro-cutting contractors.
“A lot of the challenge on a turnaround comes from the management of the entire scope of work,” said Ramirez. “On the Western project, we had to manage five subcontractors with varying scopes of work, which means there were a lot of moving parts to coordinate.”
The management team’s ability to create and direct the schedule and oversee quality work plays a big part in whether or not the turnaround project will be successful. Managing subcontractors is an art and a science. Each subcontractor needs to be on the project at a specific time, on a specific day — in this case, the day and time determined by AltairStrickland. Any deviation from the preset schedule can slow the project down leading to delaying the completion of the turnaround.
“You have to ensure the subcontractors are there on the day you need them,” said Cooper, referring to his subcontractor management duties. “You need to make sure the subs don’t have any roadblocks to delay them so they can stay on time, on schedule and under budget.”
“All turnarounds are schedule-driven,” said Ramirez. “When a refiner takes on a turnaround, they do studies years in advance to identify what’s ‘critical path,’ which drives the entire turnaround. When you manage subcontractors, it’s important you stay on schedule. If a subcontractor takes too long and you get off schedule, you’ve got the other subcontractors sitting on their hands and charging even though they aren’t doing any work.”
But AltairStrickland’s pre-planning and coordination ensured that wasn’t the case on the Western project. “Because of the way every person worked in unity with one another, the project was a huge success,” said Cooper as he reflected on the turnaround. “Everybody worked well together. It was a true collaboration.”
Ramirez similarly cited the collaboration as a key factor. “Our relationship with Western Refining was more than your typical alliance, client/contractor relationship,” he said. “It was a partnership between our two companies, which is the best way to be successful. We value Western as a partner and have participated in their turnaround events for over 10 years. We appreciate their collaborative approach on this important turnaround and look forward to continuing our relationship. ”
Webber summed up by saying, “The outcome of the El Paso refinery job was a very happy and satisfied client. As with all our projects, we do an ‘after action review’ that revealed on all major measures the project was a success. Being on time, on budget and efficient is paramount in every job we take on. We apply this same specialized, dedicated focus on pre-planning, safety and quality to help all of our customers manage their turnarounds from concept to completion.”
For more information, visit www.altairstrickland.com or call (281) 478-6200.
