2018 Achieving Operational

Excellence in Maintenance
and Turnarounds
BROUGHT TO YOU BY

The 2018 Achieving operational excellence whitepaper provides a

critical analysis of some of the top challenges owners are facing
today with downstream turnarounds and maintenance. Interviews
with top managers illustrate some of the gold-standard innovations
and best practices maintenance and turnaround teams are using to
solve these dilemmas.
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About Petrochemical Update

Through independent market research and large-scale international downstream

conferences, Petrochemical Update helps decision makers anticipate the downstream future
and formulate timely plans in the face of rapid change.
Our analysts are known for independence, fundamental research, foresight and original
thinking. Our clients are petrochemical operators, refining operators, LNG operators,
contractors, service providers and other consultancy firms.

Disclaimer
The information and opinions in this whitepaper were
prepared by Petrochemical Update (FCBI Energy Ltd.) and
its partners. Petrochemical Update (FCBI Energy Ltd.) has
no obligation to tell you when opinions or information in
this report change.
Petrochemical Update (FCBI Energy Ltd.) makes every
effort to use reliable, comprehensive information, but we
make no representation that it is accurate or complete.
In no event shall Petrochemical Update (FCBI Energy
Ltd.) and its partners be liable for any damages, losses,
expenses, loss of data, loss of opportunity or profit caused
by the use of the material or contents of this report.
No part of this document may be distributed, resold,
copied or adapted without Petrochemical Update’s (FCBI
Energy Ltd.) prior written permission.

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This whitepaper covers:

1. Top challenges turnaround and maintenance teams have faced and the innovative solutions
they created that led to operational excellence including: scheduling and planning changes,
job description updates, developing review processes and implementing Industry 4.0.
2. Balancing technology with communication, and leadership strategies that promote
operational excellence.
3. Augmenting communication and management with technology and game changers that help
teams automate turnaround tasks and reduce non-productive time and end paper tracking.
4. Plus, technology to increase collaboration and show a full audit history of who is doing what,
when and why.

Featuring Insight from:

Chris Vaughn,
Manager Turnarounds,
Addivant

Chris Leonard,
Continuous Improvement Project Director,
Dow

Kevin Strader,
Turnaround and Reliability Engineer,
BP

Glenn Healey,
Regional Vice President, Sales
Appian Corporation

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Introduction
The US downstream industry’s renaissance continues in 2018 with capital spending expected to rise by more
than 6% from 2017 and planned maintenance spend to increase by 38.5% to $1.26 billion, according to the
latest data from trade associations.
U.S refiners are poised to spend at least $1.26 billion on planned maintenance spend in 2018, according to
estimates from Industrial Information Resources (IIR).
Refiners will increase planned maintenance spend by 38.5% to $1.26 billion in 2018, according to IIR. The
chemicals processing sector will see a 4% increase.
Scheduled plant outages, turnarounds and shutdowns increased by 5.4% to $10.43 billion across all U.S.
Industrial Markets in 2017, according to IIR.
With bigger outlooks amid increasingly squeezed budgets, reduced margins, aging assets and pressure
to improve productivity and efficiency; one of the key priorities across both Maintenance and Turnaround
departments is to look for innovative solutions to age old problems while achieving operational excellence.
To achieve operational excellence, teams must shift the culture away from an outlook of ‘this is how we have
always done things’ to one where new innovations, process and technologies are embraced organization-
wide.
Turnaround and maintenance teams face many challenges in achieving this gold standard including
organizational culture, staffing, change fatigue, adequate and appropriate training, lack of technology
infrastructure, and even communication.
With the next 3-5 years expected to see a high number of shutdowns, turnarounds and outages at
petrochemical plants & refineries in the US, it is more important than ever for owners to build effective and
innovative plans and processes to deliver projects on time, on budget and safely.
This white paper features insight from seasoned turnaround managers, maintenance teams, and industry
consultants in North America to highlight the key strategies and latest lessons learned at petrochemical and
refining facilities that have significantly improved their turnaround programs and developed a culture of
operational excellence. This paper places emphasis on:
ŸŸ How turnaround managers can use technology to address the most pressing challenges
ŸŸ Communication and leadership strategies that promote operational excellence
ŸŸ Innovative solutions to the most common problems turnaround and maintenance teams face

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Outlook
In its year-end 2017-2018 outlook, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) noted that American chemistry is
experiencing a “renaissance” as new investments come online while others continue to be announced. At the
same time, US chemical companies continue to research improving efficiencies and product development.
U.S. chemical manufacturers remain advantaged with access to cheaper and more abundant
feedstocks and energy, helping push the number of announced chemical production projects to
nearly 320 with a cumulative value of over $185 billion, according to the American Chemistry Council
(ACC).
In addition to the new projects, chemical industry capital spending continues to surge, reaching $38 billion
in 2017 and accounting for one-half of total construction spending by the manufacturing sector. Capital
spending increased 6.0% in 2017, but will grow by 6.3% in 2018 and 6.8% in 2019, reaching $48 billion by
2022, the ACC said.
“Our fundamentals remain incredibly strong and the U.S. remains the destination for chemical investment,”
said Kevin Swift, chief economist of ACC, noting that 62% of the $185 billion in announced projects is foreign
direct investment.
Capital spending for bulk petrochemical and organic intermediates, along with spending for plastic resins, will
dominate, according to the ACC.

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Spending for buildings and structures present strong opportunities during this period, beginning with
spending for site preparation and utilities and then building and installation taking over. Major process
equipment has largely been specified and procured for most projects although delivery will still occur.
“American chemistry is riding a synchronized global upswing,” Swift said. “Manufacturing has turned a corner,
business investment is on the rise, and domestic oil and gas production is on the rebound. It all sets the stage
for tremendous momentum, expansion, and capital investment,” he added.
The United States has now been favorably re-evaluated as an investment location by analysts, and
petrochemical producers have announced significant expansions of capacity in the U.S., reversing a decade-
long decline in the 2000s.
A new capital spending cycle began in 2010 as chemical manufacturers recovered from the financial crisis and
as significant expansions of existing petrochemical capacity emerged due to new supplies of natural gas. The
gains to basic olefins capacity during the 2010s are estimated at nearly 40%, according to the ACC.
As a result, chemical industry capital spending in the U.S. surged 67% in the subsequent seven years, reaching
$33.8 billion in 2017.
During recent years, chemistry has accounted for one-half of total construction spending by the
manufacturing sector.
By 2022, U.S. capital spending by the chemical industry is expected to reach $48 billion, nearly two-and-a-half
times the level of spending at the start of this prolonged cycle in 2010.
“The dynamics for sustained capital investment are in place and ACC continues to track the wave of new
investment from shale gas,” the ACC said.
Accelerating growth in U.S. chemistry across all segments

Image: American Chemistry Council

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Operational Excellence in all phases

Operational Excellence is much more than just the mechanical execution of turnarounds, top managers
believe.
“Operational excellence happens in all phases of the turnaround – Planning/Scheduling, Execution, and
Critique,” said Chris Vaughn, Plant Manager at Addivant. “Significant energy and effort takes place years or
months before a turnaround is executed. Operational excellence cannot happen in execution if it doesn’t
happen in the planning and scheduling phase.”
Operations, Maintenance, Capital, Contract Administration are all stakeholders in every phase of the
turnaround and the teamwork, or lack the hereof, can influence the performance during execution.
“The teams that I had the privilege of leading took a focused approach towards operational excellence in
identifying the turnaround scope, scheduling the work activities and understanding the commissioning
sequence,” Vaughn said. “We have several successful turnarounds because the team was focused in all phases
including critique.

Review procedures
Post-event feedback is important as it provides the reality check of what went right or what went wrong
during the turnaround or maintenance event beyond scheduling and budgets. Keeping track of problems is
important to progressively avoid these pitfalls again and can be the motivation to develop a new system.
Organizations that hold themselves accountable as well as other organizations share a mature characteristic
of operational excellence.
An open and honest discussion on what went well and what needed improvement was the key to turning
things around after Vaughn’s first critique with his team. The critique was used to develop the group’s
turnaround procedures and practices and has led to greater accountability.
“Organizations are holding themselves and other organizations accountable in the critique and action plans
that we developed,” Vaughn said. “Complacency is the biggest risk when performing critiques. Teams need to
be introspective and work to develop their skills in the gaps identified in critiques.”

Assigned key roles

A huge challenge managers mention is being able to put 100% focus on the turnaround during the planning
and scheduling period. Employees have their day to day job and are consumed with the day to day activities
and sometimes fire-fighting issues as well.
“Leaders need to balance day-to-day activities and long-term objectives of a safe and efficient turnaround,”
Vaughn said. “Turnarounds are usually neglected until it is time for execution and then it is far too late for a
miracle.”

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Vaughn said he brings on a dedicated turnaround leader and dedicated planners and schedulers during the
events.
“Turnarounds can be the biggest capacity release source for a site or organization, but some leaders don’t
share that perspective,” Vaughn said. “A dedicated team will pay for itself.”

Contingency plans
As much as any maintenance and turnaround team wants scope frozen as early as possible, inevitably there
will always be discovery work or scope growth.
The best way to prepare is to identify any high-risk inspections or work activities in advance. Engaging the
appropriate MIQA Inspectors, SME’s (senior mechanical engineers), and Contract Administration on Risk
Assessments and Contingency Plans early has proven to be effective for Vaughn.
Contingency plans should be developed because of the risk assessment, Vaughn said.
“Most of the risk in turnarounds is already identified within the scope, it’s a leader’s responsibility to engage
the resources and find out how the team will adjust to discovery work or scope growth,” Vaughn said. “It does
take significant time and energy, but is critical to turnaround success.”

Excellence in Execution
Turnaround and maintenance leaders are tasked with more than ever before as they must deliver streamlined
operations in a challenging climate. Leaders are pressured to deliver more turnarounds per year, with less time
available to plan and execute each event. Turnarounds are complex and difficult to manage, requiring major
capital outlays and even a small risk can put operators at risk.

Technology
Glenn Healy, vice president of sales at Appian believes a key factor for these issues is having outdated
technology, and depending too much on manual systems across a company’s many departments.
As organizations have grown over the years, rather through acquisitions or general organic growth, various
departments and technology have been separated into silos. A company may have a stellar maintenance
department, another great procurement group, a finance department, but all these lines of business with the
organization have their own technology to support their own departments.

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“The challenge is these core business processes go across all these systems and people,” Healy said. “Today
the way these systems work, nothing is unified, so this presents a real challenge because there is this white
space between the lines of business and departments and people. You can’t see who is doing what and who
is working on what. There is a lack of visibility, a lack of control and a lack of agility.”
Moving to an automated system is the answer for collaboration issues and a host of other problems,
according to Healy. Project management tools like Appian start with a solution such as Oracle’s Primavera, SAP
or Microsoft and provide a centralized platform of project intelligence throughout project completion that
increases organizational competence, provides a common framework for project management, and helps
contractors get up to speed quickly.
Automating turnaround tasks reduces non-productive time and ends paper tracking; increases collaboration
by showing a full audit history of who is doing what; helps to meet forecasts with real-time access to
performance and task completion data; and can the Appian interface can integrate with SAP, Oracle
Primavera, Microsoft and more, Healy said.
“I look at operational excellence as the opportunity to fix the accidental architecture of the last couple of
decades within organizations,” Healy said.

Appian Case Study ‘Reducing the manual processes’

One Appian customer documented a $35 million savings with one turnaround that was across seven
refineries.
“Each turnaround found there was multimillion-dollar savings in automating the processes and
replacing the manual paper based processes,” Healy said.
Automating reducing paper tasks. Being able to optimize resource allocation, inspection, schedules,
integration is the ability to maximize data access without having to log into multiple systems.
This group was spending years in advance, planning for a turnaround when the unit would be shut
down 30 plus days. They brought in many contractors and worked them 24 hours around the clock.
Any hour lost, any day lost, cost the organization millions of dollars, Healy said.
When turnarounds are planned, most units are using a planning program such as Oracle or Primavera
on front end. But when it gets time to start the turnaround, they print everything on paper for the
contractors. The contractors may have 1000 tasks at a time to complete in a short period of time.
Contractors are not familiar with the standard work flow at the plant, so changes and status reports are
particularly difficult, Healy said.
“People don’t know who is doing what, or when. And often times plans must change,” Healy said. “At
the end of the shift, someone only finished two of their five tasks and they have to update the system
so the new crew coming in realizes where to pick up work and they will in turn spend hours doing the
handoff when the new shift comes in.”
This was an issue if a contractor noticed something that needed to be addressed during his shift, Healy
said.
“Imagine a contractor going through a turnaround and they see something that needs to be addressed
that was not part of the plan. Now that work must be stopped, completed, but first it must be
approved, then they have to update the plan and add it to the schedule,” Healy said.
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to the system. Another challenge is once one system is updated, the other systems still need to be
updated. That lack of visibility and agility really slows things down,” he added.
Appian was able to help this refiner by developing a user system in real time.
“Imagine if we take information in from Oracle or Primavera, and then we manage those 1,000 tasks,
look at who is working on what, how much lag time there is, how long each task took, etc. Based on
the decision of that next step, we can go many different ways on that next step. We can build in rules
and exceptions,” Healy explained.
Photos and voice additions can move to the next person via simple integration. That takes away the
task of having to call and set up meetings and find the right person to help get to next step. The ability
to find those areas of automation are key. This system gives mobile ability to work anytime on any
location.
When contractors are coming off a 12-hour shift and hand off new areas where they left off. They now
have a a 5-minute handover versus a one-hour status meeting.
Contractors take photos and do voice recordings on the job. So if they go through a maintenance
project, they can add photos and voice to the system, and it is all in one single case easily transferred on
to the next person.
When a contractor found a leaky valve that was not part of the maintenance plan, he was able to save
time by getting approvals quicker. In the past, the contractor would need to submit this through a
lengthy process to get approval to fix it. Now, the contractor can add details, images and more directly
to Primavera so the detail gets to the decision maker quicker.

Appian has helped companies turn the accidental architecture around and save millions of dollars by helping
connect people, processes and data in a cohesive environment that allows a single user interface to be able
to put the right information to the right people at the right time in the right context, regardless of where the
data lives.
“The idea is to put the right processes and data in the rights hands at the right time,” Healy said. “We need
to be able to orchestrate an environment where people can gain the visibility of who is doing what, how
decisions are made, in real time as well as a historical lookback.”
The historical lookback function has been particularly helpful for groups to understand what went wrong in
the past and how to avoid it.
“When we look back at historical turnarounds, often what happens is we have completed this turnaround and
it was a 30-day turnaround and we missed our deadline by 5 days, so we ask why did we miss. We don’t know.
No one knows. We don’t have the answers,” Healy said. “Everything is all paper based, so we have to look back
at all the paper documents and track back. It becomes an exercise of analysis. Analysis causes paralysis, and
nothing gets done.”
Companies want to shave hours off these projects per day and reduce risk from project slippage or
unscheduled incidents and that means having the necessary information available at your fingertips instead
of having to chase it around the organization, Healy said.

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Dow Case Study ‘Innovation and Continuous Improvement’

At Dow Chemical, innovation, and investing in its people is key to success and driving continuous
improvement.
“In Dow, operational excellence in maintenance and turnarounds means we strive to be the safest, most
cost-effective teams for delivering reliability, maintenance, turnarounds, and projects. We also ensure
our assets operate in an environmentally sound manner, and we meet our customers’ expectations,”
said Chris Leonard, Reliability Project Director at Dow. “This is achieved through integrated (operations,
maintenance, projects), empowered teams working as a highly skilled, highly leveraged, highly
productive and innovative work force coupled with consistent, effective corporate metrics to gage
performance.”
“Dow’s work processes coupled with our people’s knowledge, skills, and teamwork enable our success,”
he added.
Industry 4.0
Recently, Dow has implemented its own version of Industry 4.0 targeted specifically for manufacturing.
“It is important understand the innovations in technologies available and how best to exploit them
to improve the bottom line,” Leonard said. “This positions Dow operations as a leader in the Fourth
Industrial Revolution by identifying opportunity and narrowing our focus so we are ready to deploy
people and capital as available.”
Powered by five support technology thrusts; analytics, robotics, digital thread, process control/
process automation, and mobile solutions, these enablers provide the smart technology and real time
data needed to define value generation for Dow and establish Dow as a top competitor in a rapidly
changing environment
“This effort is a breakthrough initiative in our operations strategy that is designed to improve
productivity and competitiveness while driving continued growth and raising enterprise-wide
performance,” Leonard said.
Continuous Improvement
Dow has embraced a policy of Continuous Improvement and utilizes a number of key processes and
tools to ensure that Continuous Improvement is a way of life for its employees.
“Top down support is critical. From the CEO to the shop floor, it is understood that for Dow to be
competitive, we must continue to improve and exceed our customers’ expectations in a safe and
environmentally sound manner,” Leonard said. “As such, we have to continually improve employee
access to the Continuous Improvement support needed for success.”
Applying this approach to Dow’s efforts in improving holistic reliability from raw material to customer
delivery has led not only to the liberation of billions of pounds of production, but also improved
performance in areas not historically associated with reliability such as accurate customer invoicing,
Leonard said.
Training and investing in people are a key part of the continuous improvement plan.
“Our people are our greatest asset. We invest not only in skills and knowledge training, but also help
them understand the behaviors needed to operate and maintain our assets reliably,” Leonard said. “We

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invest in our leaders in unique ways to help them understand how to motivate their organizations to
achieve results.”
Continuous Improvement is built into everything Dow does and is an expectation of every employee,
but training employees in every continuous improvement enabler would not be value added, Leonard
said. Instead, the Dow approach is to provide information on the continuous improvement enablers
and allow employees to customize their learning based on what they need for success in their role or
project.
“Ensuring the continuous improvement mindset or culture is sustained takes constant reinforcement
from every level,” Leonard said. “Part of the effort requires our employees to know where to find
effective and efficient training on the enablers they need as well as who the subject matter experts are
that can help accelerate their progress.”
“In addition, the key to success is to make continuous improvement personal…something that every
employee can act on and contribute to overall improvement,” he added.

Operational excellence involves operations

Operations must be involved with understanding all the pre-turnaround activity and help to build the
schedule and execute it, managers say.
“Operations needs to be fully integrated into maintenance events. There cannot just be a wall where people
say, ‘oh that’s a maintenance event and no concern to us,’” said Kevin Strader, Petrochemicals Turnarounds
Assurance and Reliability Engineer at BP. “Operations needs to actually pull maintenance in and have the
mindset that it is a one team event.”
“We want to be fully integrated,” Strader said. “If we don’t get these things right from an operation standpoint,
it leads to a very ineffective, inefficient turnaround.”
Operations needs to be involved with pre-activities such as scaffold, putting together the lay down areas
before the turnaround, sectioning off areas that are going to be designated for parking or materials staging, or
things of that nature,”
It is important for operations to be involved in getting as much pre-turnaround work done as possible that
does not involve the unit being shut down including civil work and pre-turnaround activities. Operations
should think through things that need to be done closer to the turnaround, what can be done anytime, what
can be done ahead of the turnaround, what can be done during the turnaround, Strader said.
A lot of scaffold must be built before the turnaround, but scaffold has a way of getting in the way of operating
the unit. Operations can help make sure that scaffold is built in a way that will minimize daily operations.
“Some things you can even do while equipment is operating, like de-insulating a vessel, and operations needs
to be involved with understanding what that work is that needs to be done and with the schedule,” Strader
said.
A big challenge operation struggles with, according to managers, is helping to identify all the scope of the
work ahead of time, but freezing the scope early will lead to operational excellence.
BP’s goal is to freeze the scope ideally nine months ahead of time before the turnaround begins.

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“We recognize that the plant will run nine months and something may break and we may need to add on
stuff, but we want to get operations involved in getting items in the system as much as possible early on. and
not dragging their feet to freeze the scope,” Strader said.

BP Case Study ‘Turnaround Common Process and Reviews’

BP has developed a Turnaround Common Process, which are activities and milestones that must be
done in certain times, and operational responsibility is assigned for some of those activities.
The operations turnaround plan needs to be completed two months in advance of the event, planning
starts six months in advance. A maintenance coordinator from operations is assigned to manage the
event. Their responsibility is to coordinate the maintenance efforts in the unit, and to be the interface
between maintenance and operations.
“They know the unit. They have worked in operations. They are responsible for writing the notification
that can turn into maintenance work orders,” Strader said. “They are the chief person they are involved in
developing the scheduling, understanding the density of the work orders.”
Ideally the coordinator is assigned full time to the turnaround six months in advances. It is rare for this
to be a year-round job, a person generally transitions to this full time role just for that turnaround, and
then after the activity they go back to that normal job.
Maintenance Transformation Reviews
During reviews, BP realized that a key issue was the inconsistent, emotionally charged priority put
on various maintenance tasks, After hiring consultant Renoir, to help develop and implement a new
system, the refiner is seeing seven-figure return on investment across its plants, Strader said.
“We are seeing in the millions in efficiency gains combined across the sites. Its’ been a good investment,”
Strader said. “For measurement, we are constantly looking at our KPIs and staying on track doing self-
verification activities.”
“When you talk about operational excellence and the fundamental blocking and tackling of
maintenance activity, this has been a big win for us,” Strader added.
The maintenance transformation involved improving the efficiency of the executing of maintenance
work and assigning priorities to tasks, plus adding a review.
Rather than writing a problem on a piece of paper and handing it to the maintenance coordinator, BP
has trained its team proper notification writing which includes being specific, adding the equipment
number and details about the issue.
BP then introduced a criticality matrix to help prioritize this work which involves a number system. Each
piece of equipment has a number and the type of work needed has a number. These numbers are
multiplied together to get the criticality matrix number. The bigger the number, the bigger the job.
We had to train around proper notification writing and we had to train operators on what type of
information is important to have,” Strader said. “It is a whole new learning for everyone, from operations
to engineering. It is has made for more efficient understanding of work.”

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Connect the human chain

Downstream operators focus on technology and high-level charting when it comes to turnarounds,
maintenance and major projects; but, many projects and teams are often missing the communication aspect,
according to analysts.
Advanced sustainment and lean operation methods are used by operators like Suncor, Shell, and ExxonMobil
to get through turnarounds and projects. Documented improvements have been seen in schedule accuracy
and attainment by more than 15%, work order quality by more than 20%, and reducing contractor needs by
more than 15%, according to Argo Consulting.
Advanced sustainment methods focus on building people skills and interactions, while lean operations
focuses on improving the process. By using components like visual boards, visual management tools and
leader standard work, operators can channel high-level work programs down to a pragmatic real-time and
flexible communication approach so that employees are interconnected at the right points for maximum
project success and able to react to unforeseen events.
Visual management boards are used to communicate the status of safety, quality, cost, and delivery on a real-
time basis and are also used to update manually a metric(s) that means something to a craft team, such as
work orders completed per shift, materials returned to warehouse or repeat work.
“Visual management techniques, if implemented properly, represent the targets and the status in real time.
If the right people are in the room at the time and at the right frequency, collaboration, accountability and
problem-solving happen naturally, because everyone is looking at the same data,” Jorge Mastellari of Argo
said.
“People who are responsible for getting the work done are making commitments face-to-face with their
colleagues. This diminishes the dysfunctional modes that happen with one-way communication such as
e-mail. The daily huddles typically end with commitment around the three critical actions to win today” he
added.
“Visual management boards
encourage individuals to engage “the
conscious brain” which according to
DWD findings is essential to promote
the PDCA (plan/do/check/act) cycle
for problem solving. The end game is
to convert front line people from
passive by-standers to active problem
solvers,” Mastellari said

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Status Meetings
Various visual management styles can work effectively and the status meeting technique depends on the
complexity of the turnaround or project, the amount of contractors, the length of the event and the particular
site, Vaughn said.
“Smaller projects and standard turnarounds with less contractors might benefit with weekly status updates,”
Vaughn said. “A more complex turnaround or project with multiple contractors and day-to-day activities
would necessitate daily status updates.”
Vaughn’s management process for smaller and less complex turnarounds would typically involve two
30-minute status update meetings each week and keeping a recap visual board updated daily for all
participants to see. The status meetings typically take place twice a week, on Monday mornings to check in
and establish the week’s priorities, performance measurement, resources needed and any potential roadblock
or barriers. Then, a check out meeting on Thursday afternoon is held to provide status updates and discuss
performance and improvement goals for the following week.
“The supervisor leads the conversation around a clear target to win today and allows craft to adjust schedules
according to priorities and potential issues,” Mastellari said. “The supervisor has a finger on the pulse of every
team and demands explanation for misses every time a craft team does not meet its work order target for the
day. This provides engagement and accountability.”
Weekly Check in Check out Board

Daily Recap Visual Board

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Daily Recap Visual Management Agenda Items

SAFETY OPERATIONS MINOR CAPITAL PROJECTS MIQA INSPECTIONS STATUS

Status of Decommissioning,
Prep, Commissioning and List of all capital projects List of equipment inspected
Daily safety theme Start-Up Activities status with RYG Indicators during day Overall
List of equipment that can be
Safety KPIs returned to service Critical Paths
Audit behavior and trends Units

PROBLEM SOLVING SESSIONS,

ACTION ITEMS,
RECOGNITION MAINTENANCE MAJOR CAPITAL PROJECTS DISCOVERY WORK ANNOUNCEMENTS
Status of outstanding repairs Track action items with
List of work activities List of all capital projects to be completed before responsible personnel and
Simple and Impactful completed per schedule status with RYG Indicators returning to service timing
Broadly communicated to List of work activities that did
Site and Contractors through not get worked or completed
TAR Update Status E-Mail per schedule

Visual data board examples courtesy of Chis Vaughn

Conclusion
Although turnarounds and shutdowns are often planned months or even years in advance, Emerson Process
Management found that 74% of plant turnarounds and outages fail to meet their performance goals.
40% of turnarounds miss their schedule and or budget targets by 30% or more. Schedule overruns average
five days longer than planned, with an average cost impact of $2 million per day late. Five-day overruns
equate to around $8 million loss for a turnaround project valued at around $39 million, according to
consultants at Aveva.
AP-Networks’ study of medium and high-complexity turnarounds executed since mid-2012 shows that
turnarounds most often fail due to increased event complexity, inefficient organizational capability, lack of
engaged leadership, ineffective scope development and scope freeze, as well as inadequate capital project
integration.
With the next 3-5 years expected to see a high number of shutdowns, turnarounds and outages at
petrochemical plants & refineries in the US, it is more important than ever for owners to build effective and
innovative plans and processes to deliver projects on time, on budget, safer and better than ever.
Innovative managers have looked at old problems and created innovative and new solutions which have in
turn brought about a culture of operational excellence within their facilities.
By changing traditional processes, job descriptions and priority systems; improving technology and balancing
human interaction, managers have brought about much needed change and operational excellence in the
turnaround and maintenance sector.

JANUARY 2018 2018 ACHIEVING OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE IN MAINTENANCE AND TURNAROUNDS | 16

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THE WORLD'S LEADING DOWNSTREAM CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION

WILLIAM RUH DECIE AUTIN MICHAEL FOREMAN

Chief Digital Officer Vice President – Project Development, Former Astronaut
GE EXXONMOBIL NASA

WALTER PINTO DENISE MCWATTERS RON HUIJSMANS RANDY POUND HERMAN VERHOEVEN
Senior Director of Global Projects SVP & Chief U.S. Gulf Coast Global Manufacturing VP - Global
LYONDELLBASELL Compliance Officer Program Director Director – Maintenance Reliability Excellence
HOLLYFRONTIER DOW CHEMICAL  & Reliability COVESTRO
OLIN CORPORATION

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ENGINEERING & MAINTENANCE & SHUTDOWNS &
CONSTRUCTION RELIABILITY TURNAROUNDS
Drive Transformative Change in Productivity, Unlock the Savings of Asset Driven Make your Turnarounds Count, Leverage
Interoperability and Performance for Maintenance, Begin the Cultural Innovations, Integrate Goals and
Downstream Capital Projects and Technological Shift Maximize Efficiency

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