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Turnaround maintenance is a necessary activity in process industry. It also represents a major cost, often exceeding completion and budget estimates. Studies indicate that the cost to perform work during a turnaround is 250% - 350% more expensive than performing the work on-stream. Clearly, the identification and elimination of even a fraction of unnecessary turnaround maintenance activities can translate into a significant reduction in turnaround cost. On the other hand, eliminating the wrong activities could increase the risk of safety related incidents and halt production. In the absence of a viable way to confidently measure the risk of performing or not performing turnaround maintenance activities, the tendency is to play it safe - perform maintenance tasks on equipment that is functioning per the requirements, a decision-making process which can lead to significant, unnecessary expenditures, providing no corresponding increase in reliability or safety. One of the most effective ways to reduce turnaround cost and duration is through risk assessment - identifying which tasks to leave in, and which to leave out of the work scope, based on the probability and consequence of failure. Project management and inter-departmental communication and teamwork are integral ingredients of the successful turnaround. However, it is improvements in the development of work scope - the timely, accurate identification of the necessary maintenance tasks to be executed - which have the greatest potential to impact the bottom-line. The biggest barrier to optimal work scope development is data - not necessarily the lack of it, but the inability to effectively leverage it. Many companies have invested millions of dollars in multiple maintenance related tools to collect and store vast amounts of data. However, even quality data is minimized when it remains isolated, unable to contribute its value to making asset performance management decisions. In many companies, one of the first steps in the turnaround process is the time consuming collection of required data from multiple and varied sources - databases, spreadsheets - for comparison and review; a process that is most often repeated with each new turnaround. Companies like this Latin America Petrochemical (MTBE & Methanol Facilities) organization are experiencing the advantages of using an integrated, risk-management approach when developing turnaround work scope. The company has reported a $1.65 million reduction in their projected 2010 turnaround costs due to work scope optimization, as well as work process improvements enabling future turnaround work scope development and execution periods to be shortened, and best practices to be quickly implemented. Click here to download the whitepaper Optimization of Turnaround Work Scope Based on Criticality Review - A Latin American Petrochemical Case Study, by Wilfredo Rivero, Senior Consultant, Meridium, Inc., to learn about the work scope optimization process being used at this major Latin American Petrochemical organization.
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