Shutdown Management for Maximum Production

Shutdown is a generic term for what may be called an outage, turnaround (TAR), or overhaul. Running a shutdown well has always been key to the financial contribution of a business. However, something important has changed. The post-pandemic reality is that turnover and extended vacancies are eroding established maintenance processes that now struggle to yield the required plant availability. One tactic to mitigate this is to make the process “turnover-proof.” This is achieved through disciplined execution of documented processes backed by role definitions, training material, cross-training, and training the trainers, etc. The good news is, that tactic is entirely within the control of the maintenance area to create. This presentation proposes a framework to manage plant shutdowns in the mining industry and discusses four case studies, one of which is currently ongoing. The case studies are selected to show application over a range of different size shutdowns, from micro to mini to macro. Shutdowns vary immensely in nature, scope, and duration but all have four common objectives: do no harm (safety and environment); reliability restoration, (i.e., plant runs reliably until the next planned outage); schedule compliance—complete the work within the planned shutdown duration; and shutdown budget compliance. Like any other work, executing a shutdown is a process. It can be thought of as a combination of the weekly maintenance work cycle and a project, as it has elements from both, and any work process can be optimized. Shutdowns have two main loss drivers that impact production: shutdown duration, including schedule overruns; and unplanned outages, post-shutdown, due to work not done or work poorly done during the shutdown. While this presentation focuses on the management of shutdowns to control schedule and restore reliability, it should be noted that these improvements in execution will also benefit safety and cost.