Pcubed Refinery Maintenance
Petroleum Products Company, Routine Maintenance, Refining
The Challenge
Over the last three decades market dynamics have created an environment where investment in new refining capacity was limited due to low margins. At the same time domestic demand rose continuously to levels approaching refining capacity. As a result, refinery utilization is approaching capacity, thus necessitating world-class maintenance operations that maximize plant uptime and availability. Faced with these new market realities the Refinery realized that a maintenance transformation was necessary.
The Pcubed Solution
As part of its efforts on the Routine Maintenance Improvement Team, Pcubed defined a pilot area to roadmap, prove and then deploy the solution. The solution included a maintenance philosophy to address work order prioritization, as well as a responsibility structure for the pivotal roles including staffing. Methodologies for planning and scheduling were established as a baseline for monitoring and measuring progress, coaching personnel and management, and refining the path as necessary.
The Results
The Routine Maintenance Improvement Team achieved double digit improvement in wrench time and reduced contractor cost attributable to the pilot area by over 30%. In addition, the solutions resulted in higher project management compliance, lower material expediting costs, and improved accuracy of estimates. No recordable safety incidents were experienced.
Petroleum Products Company, Shutdown-Turnaround Maintenance, Refining
The Challenge
As part of its continuous improvement process, as well as part of its effort to increase availability and utilization, the Refinery addressed its turnaround process. To date, the refinery had been experiencing sub-optimal results in shutdown maintenance characterized by a disconnect between work planning and work scheduling systems, resulting in unnecessary work being performed or critical work being missed. The challenge also entailed inefficient processes, which caused users to enter data into multiple sources instead of focusing on value-add activities, and inability to track and pro-actively manage shutdown timelines due to outdated data, resulting in overruns on shutdown budgets and timelines.
The Pcubed Solution
The Refinery engaged Pcubed to deploy an Enterprise Project Management (EPM) system including a synchronization interface between the Work Order Management System (Indus Passport) and the Project Management System (Microsoft Office Project Server). The solution included a pilot and post-pilot analysis of project with the purpose to improve and standardize scheduling processes and create industry-leading best practices. In addition, a foundational Project Management Office (PMO) was included in the restructuring of the Turnaround organization.
The Results
Amongst a wider array of benefits, the client was directly able to realize visibility into plans prior to and during execution and able to accurately forecast and optimize plant down time and shutdown budgets. In addition, management is now able to make informed decisions prior to and during plant downtimes, and pro-actively manage actual dollars spent during execution.