Frequently Asked Questions

Question:

The most common problem is having the owners turn over the plant at the scheduled time to the maintenance contractor. Our workforce is mobilized for a preset date and time and this delay is expensive and creates problems with the work momentum. How can this problem be corrected?

Answer: 

The turnaround team operations representative should develop an operations plan which includes the activity details of how and the timing of shutting down the plant. These activity details are included on the master execution schedule which should be updated every day or every shift if possible to show if the operations plant shutdown is on schedule. The better detailed the Operations plan the easier the execution. Maintenance contractors when mobilized to site should check the level of detail provided by Operations to the turnaround team and included on the master execution schedule. 

Question:

Why is it that equipment that was supposed to be cleaned when the plant was being shutdown is turned over in a dirty state? This causes problems trying to complete the maintenance repairs and really slows us down.

Answer:

Equipment assets and piping systems may need to be purged, flushed or steamed as part of the plant shutdown in order to remove volatiles or residues. If the plant shutdown is behind schedule one of the ways to catch up on the schedule is to reduce the in process cleaning time. This practice however shifts the schedule slip to the maintenance phase and can increase the amount of time required for maintenance and increase the cost. There are cases where the work personnel will require extra Safety apparel due to residues left in the equipment. Some equipment can be difficult to clean but feedback from the contractor that is captured in the routine maintenance technical files will help the planners and schedulers allow for this when this task is to be done again at a later shutdown. 

Question:

We have extensive delays trying to attain Safe Work Permits before our people can go to work. Is there a sure fire system that everyone can use? Every plant seems to have a different type of permit and a different way of dealing with them.

Answer:

There is no one universal system. The maintenance supervision should pick up the start of day SWP before the workers arrive on site. This may require the previous shift to write the activities on the permit for the incoming shift giving Operations time to review the upcoming work. The operations permit writer who signs the SWP is ultimately responsible but may require support personnel to complete an area review or volatile atmosphere gas test. These should be accounted for in the Operations Plan. The operations representative should review and agree on all safety requirements, during the work package review in the detail planning phase, for the activities and the documentation should be available in the permit center and in the contractors work package. This will allow for an special safety equipment or procedures to be put in place at the time of writing the SWP. During the preshutdown the turnaround supervision, operations representative and contractor supervision need to review the SWP procedure to ensure that they are handed out in a timely manner. The Operations group may be called upon to issue 10 permits per shift during steady state operation and up to 300 per shift during the maintenance outage.