Faster, Safer, Cleaner: The Trends and Challenges in Plant Turnaround

Related Vendors

DÜPERTHAL Sicherheitstechnik GmbH & Co. KG

cac-2023-poslogo-idea-ahead (CAC ENGINEERING GMBH)

When it comes to selecting suitable specialists and subcontractors, however, not only budget decides: More and more often, it is the staffing level of the service provider which makes or breaks a deal. In about 50 % of cases, a decision has been taken to change contractors because of the lack of human resources. Indeed, according to the T.A. Cook survey, personnel is one the main reasons for looking for alternative providers besides poor quality standards, schedule problems or better conditions at competitors.

Process optimisation will become a major task for industrial service providers, insiders blieve: “There is still significant room for improvement in most turnarounds,” explained turnaround expert Dirk Frame, Managing Partner at T.A. Cook, “with the potential in some cases to save up to 20 % on costs. Planning and project management are key factors in general, but scope and risk management are also of prime importance, as is the right partner strategy”.

Measures in project management include the staggering of shutdown and restart processes to generate synergies— an option that, according to T.A. Cook, 84 % of managers use — or standardized risk analyses (used by 80 %) and schedules with several levels (78 %).

Additional Information

At a Glance

The Top Five Trends in Turnaround

Costs: An expectation of increasing costs is expressed by a majority (61 %). The problem of finding the right personnel is seen as the number one cost driver by 65 %.

Planning: Increasingly complex plants, lower staffing levels and reduced management expertise are making planning and project management a challenge for relatively small firms in particular.

Skilled labor: Retiring turnaround veterans and a lack of young entrants to engineering professions are affecting the industry. Discrepancies of up to 50 % are expected in mechanical trades in particular, but also in planning and coordination.

Service providers: The plant operators are often out of their depth and lack the skills to handle complex large–scale projects and high–level demands. Service providers will feature more prominently in future, especially in the planning and management of turnaround processes.

Complexity: The trend to longer intervals between shutdowns is leading to an increase in project requirements and labor input.

Source: “Komplexere Stillstände bei weniger Fachkräften — Trends im Turnaround-Markt” [increasing complexity of shutdowns with decreasing levels of skilled staff — trends in the turnaround market] by T.A. Cook. Published in the Turnaround–Jahrbuch 2014. www.TACook.com

Still Potential for Improvement in Plant Turnaround

A high degree of prefabrication can help to reduce the actual turnaround effort but does significantly increase the complexity of the planning phase. At the technical level, measures such as condition monitoring, training simulators, and the development of redundant structures are used to make turnarounds faster and safer. Auto ID systems for equipment and components can help to coordinate the asset management on site, and modern methods of diagnosis are increasingly replacing invasive methods of inspection. Industry insiders also recommend to take a redesign or replacing components with new parts, which are more efficient and require less maintenance, into account. Providing these services for the industry can render a company indispensable to a business. The other side of the coin is that outsourcing is compounding the lack of expertise among plant owners. Some companies manage to buck the trend by developing centers of excellence, but this only works for large corporations. More to do and less and less time to do it in — plant operators will have to pay close attention to future turnarounds in order to achieve long–term success. ●

* The author is editor of PROCESS

(ID:42581393)