Seven tips for more effective, efficient plant turnarounds

Effective plant turnarounds rely on early planning, supplier engagement, training, prefabrication, and quality control to ensure efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance long-term system reliability, Mike Aughenbaugh tells OGN

- By ABDULAZIZ KHATTAK

PLANT turnaround is a major undertaking for chemical plants and refineries around the world. These complex events often involve hundreds of technicians from multiple vendors, working simultaneously to complete a variety of important maintenance, revamp, and renewal activities across a specific system or an entire plant at once, Mike Aughenbaugh, Associate Target Market Manager, Swagelok, tells OGN energy magazine.

Since a turnaround involves taking processes offline, thereby stopping production, it is in the owner/operators’ best interest to complete these projects as efficiently as possible.

Additionally, protracted turnaround projects involve keeping contractors on-site for longer, thereby increasing cost and risk.

For larger facilities, turnarounds may involve years of planning, and they represent massive investment on the operator’s behalf it is not uncommon that turnaround accounts for a major portion of the organisation’s annual maintenance budget.

For these reasons, a mismanaged turnaround can cause a major financial hit to an organisation.

With all of this in mind, there are seven best practices that owners/operators can follow for more effective turnaround management:

1. Engage early with trusted suppliers: Planning for turnarounds is an extensive process, often beginning years before the work itself starts, and for good reason. Being as prepared as possible can help eliminate unforeseen project pitfalls.

Major fluid systems are complex entities, some requiring specialised parts and components made from highly specific alloys, depending on the process.