By Sphera’s Editorial Team | May 29, 2020

Visualize interrelated risk and bridge the gap between the plan and reality.

 

Turnarounds. The cornerstone of any plant’s maintenance strategy. But getting them right is tough.

The numbers paint a vivid picture of the complexity: tens of thousands of separate jobs; durations between 20 and 60 days for process plants; thousands of contractors. It’s daunting to complete a large portfolio of maintenance tasks with potentially new contractors, planned downtime and its subsequent loss of production in a tight timeframe. And planning cycles can take years.

Yet, as important as they are to profitability, most turnaround projects fail. According to industry research:

While it’s tempting to see the solution as solely an exercise in planning with a detailed “follow the manual approach,” scope creep is one of the main reasons why turnarounds fail. For staff and contractors, the problem occurs when the plan meets real-time. Even the most sophisticated maintenance plan has gaps, and without the right tools – trying to adjust the plan in real-time can result in increased risk, unexpected delays, prolonged downtime/costly overruns – which can measure millions of dollars per day in lost production due to asset downtime!

A Digital Paradigm Shift

Where digitalization and the adoption of automation technologies based on the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) have allowed oil, gas and petrochemical manufacturers to make strides in improving operational performance, Industry 4.0 developments are also changing the way operators plan and execute major turnarounds.

It helps everyone make better, more informed decisions that reduce risk, improve frontline productivity and lower costs to help ensure turnarounds come in safely, on time, on budget.