Shutdown Maintenance And Emergency Shutdowns - Zimlay

 

Shutdown Maintenance And Emergency Shutdowns - Talent Blue

 

Talent Blue provides assistance and support with planned shutdown maintenance and emergency shutdowns that need to be carried out. Contact us for information.

Experts in managed services for trades, shut-down crews and maintenance. Shutdowns, turnarounds and outage services are a key offering that Talent Blue specialise in. Coupled with our project management and managed service offering, Talent Blue provide crews across a range of industries, both in metro and remote locations.

Shut Downs & Maintenance

Experts in managed services for trades, shut-down crews and maintenance.

Shutdowns, turnarounds and outage services are a key offering that Talent Blue specialise in. Coupled with our project management and managed service offering, Talent Blue provide crews across a range of industries, both in metro and remote locations.

With demonstrable experience in manufacturing facilities, hazard facilities, refineries, and power plants Talent Blue provides services ranging from shutdown support and supplying supervised shutdown teams that can scale to exceed 100 people, through to a turnkey shutdown management, planning and execution service.

Whether fixed plant, heavy industrial or manufacturing shutdowns, our team of skilled and semi-skilled candidates are available to ensure your project is delivered on time and on budget. Talent Blue also provides a range of specialist services, such as

 

Talent Blue also provides a range of specialist services, such as mobilisation support, payrolling and on site management.

Maintenance shutdown planning and the resulting shutdowns demonstrate the rigour of a company's management systems in many ways.

While offline maintenance activities are generally planned, scheduled, and executed in accordance with business-as-usual techniques, and task-level work scope and individual activities rarely change, the key difference between daily operations and shutdowns is intensity.

A large number of tasks are completed at the same time, significantly increasing risk in areas such as safety, quality, and cost.

And, with maintenance workgroups capable of growing from 20 to over 600 people and delivering in excess of 7,000 manhours over 24-hour periods ranging from days to several weeks, the value of optimising work programmes to balance maintenance needs with plant uptime is clear. When work levels are moderate, weak systems can hide in plain sight.

There is simply no hiding when they are as intense as shutdowns.

They are, in some ways, the ultimate test of system strength.

Over the last 20 years, our team has been involved in major maintenance shutdown planning and programmes. We are aware that there is no silver bullet that will solve all problems. True excellence necessitates proficiency in all aspects of conception, development, and delivery. Excellent planning, for example, will not compensate for poor execution. With this in mind, when clients want to improve their shutdown performance, we begin by assisting them in strengthening, or even developing, a robust end-to-end process framework, which we then bring to life through disciplined application.

 

A strong shutdown management system spans areas such as:

•     Consistent, detailed process and standardised work

•     Advanced work scoping and quick changeover processes

•     Defined objectives and clear expectations

•     Visibility of shutdown cycle progress

•     Trained supervisors and engaged workgroups

•     Improved information flow within teams

•     Improved reporting and data provision

Sounds straightforward enough! However, it’s all too common for chinks to show in the armour fairly quickly.

 

 Common shutdown issues

Here are the more regular issues we see:

    The shutdown strategy and event plans aren’t current, sufficiently detailed or followed. This results in a lack of alignment that, in turn, results in shutdown management teams not getting enough time to plan and prepare for execution.

    Work scope definition and management is often poor, with additional work being added to scope in the weeks preceding execution without rigorous evaluation planning.

    There’s no effective mechanism to give senior management visibility of progress. Shutdowns may last for mere days, but planning and preparation are months in the making. The ability to clearly track progress through process milestones is critical.

    Even when these high-level structures are in place, too often, specific maintenance task information is incomplete or inaccurate, such as inflated labour hour estimates or missing key parts. The link between macro and micro is obvious – and it’s where process breakdowns easily occur. There is often a failure to recognise the importance, and work demands, of the first and final phases of shutdowns. These ‘book-end’ the rest of the shutdown activity. When they are poorly managed, it negatively impacts the whole.

 

Key strategies to improve shutdown performance

To address these and other issues, we encourage leaders to consider seven key strategies in their maintenance shutdown planning and overall management:

Test your management system; major sites frequently have varying shutdown procedures.

The first step toward shutdown excellence is to standardise your approach, resulting in stable, predictable processes that drive improvement.

Manage your critical path - We always find that evaluating critical path tasks for opportunities for improvement provides value.

This includes identifying and communicating near critical path tasks to workgroups so they know how close they are to moving onto the critical path if delays occur.

Engage senior management - It is critical that senior management is involved in the development process and has visibility into progress.

 Hero discipline – a great management framework will always fail if there is a lack of discipline around process compliance. Particularly due to the intensity noted earlier, shutdowns demand discipline to ensure initiation, planning and scheduling are delivered to the required standards at the required times.

 Embed business improvement techniques – from advanced work scoping to quick changeover techniques, there is plenty of gain to be found in applying known, proven improvement techniques.

 Track process, not just readiness – shutdowns generally measure readiness, but we highly recommend visually tracking all process milestones – the end-to-end process. This includes the effective close-out and capture of learnings for ongoing improvement.

 Use your data – shutdown development generates huge volumes of data. Don’t miss the opportunity to use that data to ensure performance hurdles are managed and, more broadly, to predict the likelihood of success.

When plant uptime is at a premium, improved maintenance shutdown planning and management are of high value. Specialist support definitely fast-tracks progress, and an independent perspective is powerful, but the strategies noted here can be tackled by project teams as a simple roadmap for improvement. Then, it comes down to how you support ongoing improvement in shutdown performance. For more information on how we can support your maintenance shutdown planning, browse our asset management and maintenance services. mobilisation support, payrolling and on site management.