3.09 Shutdown & Outage Management

Risk Based Work Selection (RBWS) is a work process that has been used in industry for >20 years by some owner-operators, however; it remains a little-known process industry wide.  In recent years there has been an increasing awareness of and interest in RBWS as owner-operators have focused on reducing cost and duration of STO (Shutdown, Turnaround & Outage) while maintaining safe and reliable operation. Our experience has shown that a reduction in the overall STO work scope of approximately 20% is routinely accomplished.RBWS is a multi-discipline work process that includes all key stakeholders in the STO, Operations and the Subject Matter Experts (SME) from individual equipment disciplines.  The intent of the RBWS is to determine if there is risk-based justification (H/S/E or Financial) to complete the worklist item during the STO.  A threshold for unacceptable H/S/E risks is determined by the Site using a Risk Matrix.  For discretionary items (Financial Risk only) a Benefit to Cost threshold or “Hurdle Rate” is set to ensure an adequate return on investment and that a cost effective solution has been chosen.  Hurdle rates typically increase after the worklist freeze date as the time for planning decreases. In order to justify items, it must first be determined that they cannot be done outside of STO.  Once this is completed the worklist items are reviewed to determine what failure they are intended to prevent from occurring.  Typically the timeframe considered is the run length between turnarounds. The consequence and probability of the failure is then determined with input from the team and combined on the Risk Matrix to determine the Risk Level.    When RBWS is used with Fixed Equipment, it can utilize RBI data to validate or reject STO tasks that are included in the STO Work List (WL). RBI assessments focus on equipment integrity and loss of containment, while the RBWS methodology supplements these assessments with consideration of operational failures in vessel internals which may cause an unplanned outage, and impact on equipment performance.Methodology for assessing risks can vary from qualitative to quantitative.  The methodology is semi-quantitative which provides teams with a structured process that produces consistent results without too burdensome an amount of data required.  When Risk levels are assigned to each item it allows owner-operators to make informed decisions on what is “In” and what is “Out” of the Turnaround Scope.The end-product of an RBWS is a justified worklist that will help the organization create a competitive workshop to meet its turnaround and reliability goals.Key take aways:How owner-operator organizations successfully execute STO’s by removing or deferring tens of millions of dollars of unjustified work from turnaround scopes. How focus facilitation tailored to the make-up of each STO Worklist and site data collection helps ensure the client is prepared for a successful and efficient RBWS WorkshopResults is a competitive scope to meet site’s units’ budgets, downtime, run length and reliability targets. 

The City of Winnipeg faced challenges with the condition of their Return Activated Sludge (RAS) piping within the North End Sewage Treatment Plant. Non-destructive and destructive condition assessment techniques were used to determine that the critical process piping was life expired, and required replacement or rehabilitation to maintain process level of service until the plant is upgraded. Replacement of a RAS piping system is akin to major heart surgery on a sewage treatment plant. To manage the process risk, in situ structural renewal using an engineered Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) external wrap system to encapsulate the original carbon steel piping was chosen. Selection of the rehabilitation method reduced the schedule by two years compared to the replacement option and minimized operational risk, as process outages were reduced to a few short-term events. Offline testing of mock-ups and emphasis on environmental and quality control further managed the risks associated with CFRP installation. The project faced unique challenges due to the complex configuration of the RAS piping, which was located inside a congested plant gallery with surrounding equipment, piping, and electrical services in continuous operation. To effectively convey information during planning, design, tender, and construction, a digital 3D model was developed using laser scanning to capture the detailed configuration of the piping and surrounding physical constraints. The 3D model was embedded with data to define the rehabilitation scope, locations of existing pipe leaks requiring immediate repair, rework of pipe supports to accommodate the CFRP installation, and other aspects relevant to the work. This model was a highly effective tool used for collaborative review by all project team members throughout design and construction, leading to successful completion of the RAS piping rehabilitation.

This presentation provides insight and guidance to key stakeholders, from leadership to shop floor, on why turnaround alignment is important. We will also explore the major causes of gaps and misalignment, including lack of understanding of the complexity of turnaround projects; integration of maintenance, operations, inspection, and capital work that occurs during a turnaround event; different perspectives of typical work vs. turnaround work; managing stakeholders’ focus on urgent vs. important; awareness of strategy and plans; and understanding of the true business impact of a turnaround. It’s important that all participants and stakeholders understand these alignment issues and implement measures to close the gaps early in their project. This will pay off exponentially when you execute your turnaround event.

Maintenance Turnaround events involve major expenditures of time and money for any large continuous process plant. Without careful planning and preparation they can quickly and easily overrun their target cost and schedule. The larger and more complex the scope to be executed in the turnaround, the greater the risk is, of cost and schedule overruns. For this reason, it has, in recent years, become the norm for turnaround teams to use a “scope challenge” process, just before freezing the scope list. The purpose of the challenge being to review every work item and decide whether it should be in the scope of the turnaround event. Some of these “scope challenge” sessions can get quite sophisticated, involving a risk assessment, balancing the cost of doing the maintenance repair in the turnaround against the cost of doing it after a (probability weighted) breakdown during normal running. Many turnaround teams stop there, and assume that if they’ve had a “scope challenge”, then they’ve done what they can to optimize and control the scope. But more and more are beginning to realise that a “Risk Based Work Selection” Scope challenge session, while useful and necessary, is only one element in a process for choosing and controlling the work scope at an optimum level. This paper will describe a successful and more holistic approach, using scope control methods that start with the premise document (reference earlier article), include the scope gathering phase, go through the “Risk Based Work Selection” process and carry on to the “Additional Work Request” process after scope freeze. Along the way it will also discuss how to ensure that site leadership and plant operations staff “buy in” to the need to control the scope.

The energy landscape is shifting with the rise in electrification of transit and the rise of renewable energy shaping a new energy era that is changing the way we think about infrastructure decision making. This presentation will articulate how electrification of transit and an increase in renewables will impact medium and long-term infrastructure planning by providing examples and a practical perspective (case study) to demonstrate how Asset Management decision-making played a vital role in a utility company’s response to this change. This utility company is a key contributor to several electrification initiatives. They recognized the challenge associated with these initiatives and the overall success of the first implementation phase with minimal disruption to current operations. They are also preparing for electrification of the government transit’s first all-electric bus garage to support future procurements of battery-electric buses (eBuses) and will be working on the design and implementation of charging systems infrastructure across the city(?). Over the past 20 years, more than 50 renewable energy systems have been installed on City buildings and properties. In 2020, the city developed recommendations for the utility to achieve greater outcomes for energy efficiency, demand management, and renewable energy. The city also mandated installation of renewable energy systems on all buildings, where feasible, by 2020. The rate of development in electrification and technology in the transit sector is faster than implementation of major infrastructure developments; changes in demand patterns impact everything from the transmission and distribution networks to generation, dispatch and peak-load system capacity design; so it is not possible to “wait and see” before committing to infrastructure investment decisions. This presentation will cover how the utility is dealing with these changes by ensuring an appropriate long-term decision-making framework is in place to assure business continuity and reduce the impact on climate because it poses a particular risk for asset owners and operators. AMCL will present best practices for long-term decision-making and how the impact of change should be taken into account during the development of long-term infrastructure planning processes, in the context of a public utility.

Continuous processing or manufacturing facilities will occasionally require planned outages to primarily address reliability or maintenance issues. Due to the high cost of these outages (opportunity and real), careful planning and scheduling practices are used to come up with detailed execution plans to reduce the planned duration as much as possible. While outage duration is typically determined using the critical path methodology, large quantities of smaller but similar in nature jobs can lead to unexpected schedule extension. A planning team recently applied this lesson-learned by calculating the schedule impact of such critical mass work. During inspections and maintenance outages, labor cost is usually a significant expense. In order to meet the required cost and duration goals, worker efficiency is critical. As part of the job plans and schedule creation, a planning team was able to model one crucial feature of labor efficiency – worker density, that is the maximum number of workers that can be allocated to a specific work area over a given time span with minimum productivity losses. As a result, small changes were made to the scheduling of individual tasks. This case study will illustrate how both constraints were considered when planning & scheduling a major maintenance outage.

This paper describes strategic Asset Management at an Industry level. The illustrative case study reviews the Ontario Nuclear fleet of stations', life cycle planning and then applying simple risk analysis. The situation is illustrative, not to be taken as accurate in any aspect (eg costs, schedule etc). The purpose of this paper is to illustrate a practical example of how Asset Management can be applied at a strategic level, to support strategic planning over a multi-billion dollar, multi-decade program. The situation described is very loosely based on the OPG nuclear refurbishment program, but cannot be directly connected to it since all the information is proprietary and the numbers used are hugely different. The paper outline is expected to follow: • Background • Fleet Asset planning • Project Estimate process • Risk estimate process and review . • Conclusions The above is at a "bird's eye" view, but with enough details to understand the case study and how it pertains to a broader scope of applications. Learning: 1. Asset Management is a strong strategic tool when applied at Facility level. 2. Estimates, though rough at an early stage, can provide managerial information that is adequate for decision making. 3. Risk Management can be simple, but provides huge returns for management decision making.

Maintenance of critical assets and life safety infrastructures is extremely important. Therefore, significant precautions and risk analysis should be given to the potential effects of human errors during preventive and corrective maintenance, including bypass requirements, deactivation of system, and the expected impact of the failure on the program operation. Unanticipated or unplanned downtime is costly, negatively impacts building operation, and often impacts an organization’s reputation and brand. For planned activities (preventive or corrective), it’s important to proactively document the scope of work and identify potential problems that could occur so that risks are managed and all stakeholders are aware of them. This presentation contains a real-life application that will provide the basis to improve the future of your maintenance organization and prevent future downtime. The permit-to-work process is a real-world best practice to help improve communications, manage risk in your organization, keep your critical infrastructure running, and minimize productivity loss or damage due to unplanned downtime. We’ll provide an overview of the permit-to-work procedure and its associated risk assessment and mitigation protocol. There are seven learning objectives: evaluating maintenance performance; reducing or eliminating human errors; improving stakeholders’ engagement; enhancing interdepartmental communications; focusing on culture change by leveraging risk management tools; enhancing critical equipment reliability by reducing potential downtime; building a staff-vendor-client relationship by implementing clear expectations; and protecting your critical assets and reputation by minimizing unplanned downtime.

Uptime describes the combination of activities that deliver fewer breakdowns, improved productive capacity, lower costs, and better environmental performance. The bestselling second edition of Uptime has been used as a textbook on maintenance management in several postsecondary institutions and by many companies as the model framework for their maintenance management programs.Following in the tradition of its bestselling predecessors, Uptime: Strategies for Excellence in Maintenance Management, Third Edition explains how to deal with increasingly complex technologies, such as mobile and cloud computing, to support maintenance departments and set the stage for compliance with international standards for asset management.This updated edition reflects a far broader and deeper wealth of experience and knowledge. In addition, it restructures its previous model of excellence slightly to align what must be done more closely with how to do it.The book provides a strategy for developing and executing improvement plans that work well with the new values prevalent in today's workforce. It also explains how you can use seemingly competing improvement tools to complement and enhance each other.This edition also highlights action you can take to compensate for the gradual loss of skills in the current workforce as "baby boomers" retire. This is the Text Book for Module 1 of the MMP Program.    It is available through PEMAC, contact pd@pemac.org for information on ordering.

Based on real-world experience this invaluable guide and reference tells the whole story of maintenance planning from beginning to end in a concise and easy-to-follow manner. Written by well-known professionals this new edition focuses specifically on the preparatory tasks that lead to effective utilization and application of maintenance resources in the interest of the reliability essential to business objectives. It comprehensively examines the job preparation process from job scoping and planning, to determination of material requirements, estimation of labor requirements and job duration, coordination of all involved parties, and job scheduling. And it includes essential metrics for measuring performance of all contributing functions. It is a vital training document for planners, an educational document for those to whom planners are responsible, and a valuable guide for those who interface with the planning and scheduling function and are dependent upon the many contributions of planning and scheduling operational excellence.This is the text book for MMP Module 6.  It is available for purchase through PEMAC, by contacting; pd@pemac.org