Turnaround Management and Recordable Incident Rates

One of, if not the most important single element that has the most impact on Turnaround success is Safety. Fortunately, I believe, we have significantly evolved as an industry during the past two decades to the point where all incidents are reported and investigated. Better yet we have learned from our experiences to the extent that Turnaround Safety Management Strategies are established to meet the complex needs of the scope. Through increased experience, maturity and clearly defined processes we are able to make clear unambiguous decisions with the best confidence.
During the execution phase of most every Turnaround most stakeholders will feel the effects of working extended hours, increased responsibility and overall stress due to the level of activity. Often these factors manifest themselves into an exhibition of perceived urgency as the found work scope and corresponding workload increases. It is my experience that when these ingredients are blended together is when we rely on our approved strategies, processes and practices. By integrating safety best practices and procedures starting with the scope definition process through to planning, scheduling and managment the cultural shifts will be easier to maintain.

The following are some incident calculations relating to Facility Turnaround Projects taken from a study conducted by the Construction Industry Institute.
1. Catagory: Resources/ People
      1.1. Prior to Turnaround, when does the hiring of resources begin?
               Less than 2 weeks prior to execution start:                   0.58
               2 - 6 weeks prior to execution start:                             0.22

      1.2. Worker familiarity with work type and scope?
                Available resources not familiar with work:                  2.28
                Skilled resources familiar with work:                            0.47

2. Catagory: Planning & Scheduling
      2.1. Was a scheduling software utilized to schedule work?
                No                                                                              2.92
                Yes                                                                             0.72

      2.2. What duration granularity was utilized?
                Days                                                                            1.51
                Shifts                                                                            0.68
                Hours                                                                           0.45

      2.3. Combined: Worker familiarity and Scheduling by the hour.
                Not familiar/ Not Hours                                                1.75
                Familiar or Scheduled by Hours                                    1.08
                Familiar and Scheduled by Hours                                  0.28

      2.4. Days worked per week
                7 Days/ week                                                                0.96
                6 Days/ week                                                                0.67

      2.5. Typical Turnaround duration
                2 - 8 Weeks                                                                   1.20
                Less than 14 days                                                           0.62

      2.6. Combined: Turnaround Duration and Days Worked per Week
                At least 4 Weeks at 7 Days/Week                                  1.34
                Less than 2 Weeks and 6 Days/Week                             0.38

       2.7. Crew size (span of control)
                Over 12 Workers                                                           1.62
                7 or less Workers                                                           0.55

It is important not to be too focused on the actual numbers but the relationship they represent.

From an ethical, business and regulatory perspective an established Turnaround Safety Management Plan harmonized within the Planning, Scheduling and Managment framework will ensure all stakeholders will realize increased dividens.
             

Balancing the O&M Triple Constraint

Have you ever felt a feeling of disconnect between the wants and needs of the three major stakeholder groups within your plant?

The stakeholder groups I am referring to are the Management, Operations and Maintenance disciplines which could be thought of the O&M triple constraint. Similar to the universal project triple constraint of time/scope & budget, the O&M triple constraint is intended to gauge and manage the health of the business objective. The aim of the Operation and Maintenance (O&M) institution, as I understand, is to manage the efficiency, reliability and sustainability of process assets. For without reliable assets and ancillary systems, production would be limited or nonexistent. This directly impacts product deliverables and contractual agreements.
In order to maintain healthy relationships a certain balancing act is required to manage all stakeholder group initiatives and deliver value driven performance. The lynch pin to maintaining cohesion and communication between disciplines is the alignment of Planning and Scheduling.
The maintenance department is responsible for developing and management of an integrated system that, ultimately, reduces reactivity and short notice outage work. Desired outputs include increased productivity and base crew size scaled to meet long term objectives. A valid Planning & Scheduling program coupled with configuration and continuous improvement frameworks will enable craft personnel to work more effectively. In order for this to be realized it is essential work be validated, scoped, planned, prioritized and scheduled in accordance to an O&M structure. The evolution of this framework or structure will be the development of value added PM and PDM methodologies. The foremost outputs include increased reliability resulting in lower risk of asset downtime.
From an operations perspective, communication of work to be performed is essential to timely repairs. For the most part it is the operations group that will identify work and initiate a service request based on their expert judgment. It is important that clearly defined CMMS protocols are established and communicated to qualify consistent results.
Proportionately important is the management group which supports each element and component of the framework endorsing the value of all disciplines to provide unambiguous results. This support resonates with discipline craft persons as compensation should be within industry standards, hopefully better, work assignments and training allow people to grow and a flexible schedule is promoted.

The end result is a group of people who are transparent and understand the opportunities and constraints of each individual discipline well enough to leverage opportunities for performance driven results.

O&G Industry Acronyms

The Oil and Gas industry, like others has seemed to adopt a few interesting acronyms that are often used in conversation, meetings, operating practises and reports to summarize context. I thought I would share some of the more clever compositions I am familiar with.


SNOW: Short Notice Outage Work

STOP: Scheduled Turnaround Operations Planning

WORM: Work Order Review Meeting

BANANA: Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything

Primavera File Sharing

As many Primavera P6 users are aware different versions of Primavera run on different databases and will only communicate effectively with the type with it has been set up with. Primavera has developed a few proprietary file formats to transer specific data. I have taken almost every Primavera course available and find that this is a section that is often overlooked. As it is, not understanding or ignoring the importance of file types could impact data performance.

Proprietary file formats for P6 that are more common:

> XER - is a file format used to export and import or exchange one or more projects between users. It is important to know XER files are not limited to database types

> PLF - is a file format used to export and import or exchange layouts

> PCF - is a file format used to export and import or exchange Global Changes

> ERP - is a file format used to export and import or exchange Reports

Proprietary file formats for P6 that are less common:

> XML - is a new P6 format used to import data from the Project Manager module

MSP

> MPP - is the default file format that Microsoft Project uses to
create and save files. Microsoft Project 2007 is a different format to the
2000 - 2003 format, which is different to 98 format

* Note: Primavera 6.0 and 6 .1 will not import any .mpp file when Microsoft Project 2007 is installed as MSP 2007 disables this function

> Primavera 6 .0 and 6. 1 will import or export to the following file types:
> Project 2000 - 2003 ( MPP)
> Microsoft Project 98 ( MPP)

> MPX ( * .mpx). This is a text format data file created by Microsoft Project 98
and earlier versions
> Microsoft Project formats such as Project Database ( .mpd), Microsoft Access
Database ( *.mdb) and ( *.mpt)can be imported, however Microsoft Project
is required to be installed on the computer.

Utilizing EPC best practices for managing Turnaround Maintenance

It is my experience the folks within the EPC discipline take full advantage of utilizing software's to maximize opportunities, manage expectations, baseline common expectations, manage potential & realized risks and manage performance. I am alluding, specifically to Primavera Project Manager.
Project Managers and Schedulers be it EPC or Facility Turnaround Maintenance essentially, grapple with similar overriding constraints balancing time,resources,quality and cost. From a single Shutdown or Project we often utilize our tools with varying confidence and success. However, where the EPC framework becomes vitally more attractive is when program and portfolio's are developed within an OBS and Portfolio Manager structure. From a Maintenance Shutdown or Turnaround Perspective we can also take advantage of the OBS framework to manage multiple asset outage's throughout the year. This can be a very powerful when tracking and managing multiple asset outages as well as acting as a tool to communicate the big picture with all stakeholder levels.

"There are only 10 kinds of people: those who understand binary; those who don't"

Turnaround Sheduler Daily Schedule

The Turnaround Scheduler is probably one of the most stressful and demanding roles during the outage. When many of the leadership team has called it a day the scheduler is updating data, ensuring relationship integrity, understanding an evolving critical path and ensuring the reports truly project reality and forecast milestone events. After all has been completed for the past schedule update the schedule should identify and qualify issues as well as constraints and act as a medium to predict and manage risks. Consequently the role, as I am familiar with, is not limited to inputting data and publishing a report at the end of each shift alone. In order for the schedule to be effective it must provide a realistic projection of effort completed along with the forecasted duration remaining. One of the challenges is the fidelity of each of the disciplines updates. To maintain confidence it is prudent for the Scheduler to walk through the site at least once per day to review areas of concern and provide extra information to better understand potential risks and opportunities. To provide established outputs or results the Turnaround Scheduler typically works a predefined schedule similar to the following outline.

6:00 AM
> Nightshift supervision projects the status of the work until the end of the shift and updates the remaining duration of schedule activities performed.
> The completed schedule updates of activities performed will be turned over to the scheduler for updating the Turnaround Schedule

6:00-6:30 AM
> Updates have been received from supervision
> Turnaround Schedule activity updates are inserted into software
> Updated Schedules are printed for Dayshift

7:00 AM
> Nightshift Ends

7:30 AM
> Dayshift Starts

6:30-8:30 AM
> Information gathering and report preparation for TAR Steering Committee Meeting

8:30-9:15AM
> Site Tour

9:30 AM
> Daily (Mon-Fri) TA Progress review meeting with TAR Steering Committee Meeting

10:00-2:30PM
> Schedule integrity checks and reporting maintenance
> Site Tour

2:30 PM
> Dayshift supervision projects the status of the work until the end of the shift and updates the remaining duration of schedule activities performed.
> A copy of the projected updates will be turned over to the scheduler at the scheduler’s office before 2:30PM

2:30-3:30 PM
> Information gathering and report preparation for Daily TA Meeting

3:30-4:00 PM
> Daily TA Core Team Meeting

5:00 PM
> Dayshift supervision projects the status of the work until the end of the shift and updates the remaining duration of schedule activities performed.
> A copy of the projected updates will be turned over to the scheduler at the scheduler’s office before 5:00PM

5:00-6:30 PM
> Updates have been received from supervision
> Turnaround Schedule activity updates are inserted into software
> Updated Schedules are printed for Nightshift

7:00 PM
> Dayshift Ends

7:30PM
> Nightshift Starts