As LyondellBasell Houston Refinery LP’s Turnaround Project Manager Joe Jackson defines it, a successful turnaround team is one that meets key performance indicators and adheres to the company’s established work processes. Above all, the most successful turnaround team is safe and experiences no recordable injuries.
Secondary to safety, Jackson said, the successful turnaround team exhibits predictability in planning, scheduling and execution in delivering “a world-class turnaround” that minimizes refineries’ lost profit opportunity.
“Everybody who is in business is in business to make money,” Jackson said, independently addressing delegates to the Effective STO (shutdowns, turnarounds and outages) Summit held recently in Houston. “From a refinery perspective, we’re in business to make marketable products.”
The most evident challenge to profit opportunity in the manufacturing of those marketable products, Jackson said, is effectively managing refinery personnel.
“From a turnaround perspective,” he qualified, “everything we do is dependent on other people, whether they work within the company or outside the company.”
According to Jackson, no less than 13 “common-thread turnaround problems” must be addressed in order for managers to facilitate smooth transition when experiencing plant interruptions, whether planned or unexpected. They include:
- Shortages of qualified craft workers.
- Poor work scope management plagued by late, incomplete and changing deadlines.
- Departmental conflicts and poor communication of processes and procedures.
- Lack of turnaround plan “buy-in” by execution group.
- Poor integration with capital projects.
- Poor contracting strategy or contractor selection process.
- Poor field productivity.
- Poorly defined organizational structures marked by unclear roles and responsibilities.
- Unit shutdown and turnover of facilities taking longer than planned.
- Cost control versus cost reporting.
- Operations integration.
- Poor turnaround assurance protocol.
- Change in personnel, practices and procedures.
Jackson specifically cited personnel turnover and relocations as major detriments to successful STOs. A common factor among sites receiving high marks in turnaround performance, he has observed, is longevity among its managers.
“I’ve seen more movement in refinery staff in the past two or three years than I’ve ever seen,” he said. “It seems you just get a unit engineer broken in for a turnaround, and the next thing you see they’re moved to another unit. You get all kinds of new direction and guidance.”
Jackson encouraged managers to adopt turnaround procedures that adhere to proven systems and processes, relying heavily on database information.
“You can bring people in and then plug them right into the system,” he said. “When an unplanned outage pops up, they can flip through the database quickly, take the information they need, then address the problem.”
The highest-functioning turnaround team, Jackson said, revolves around “the right fit” of people within the organization.
“That’s the most critical thing,” he said, “because whatever processes or programs you have, these people will help you get to an execution that’s complete, thorough, hopefully on time and under budget, which is what we’re all challenged with right now.
“It doesn’t matter what tools you have. I’ve actually witnessed a group of people who worked off Excel spreadsheets, and they did a bang-up job. Just use what you have well. Find out what works, find out what you can do better and continuously improve.
“There is no magical tool out there. It’s how people use their tools and how people work together while they’re using their tools that makes them the best that they can be. To me, that’s the bottom line.”
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