Case Studies in Maintenance and Reliability: A Wealth of Best Practices. V. Narayan
All eight short-listed firms submitted their proposals. We opened these in the presence of the two executive directors. A three-person evaluation team selected the two best proposals, and listed their merits and shortcomings. The evaluation team presented their results and recommendations to the directors, who made the final selection.
The selected firm of architects had offered some innovative design ideas in their conceptual design. The roof structure design was even better than we expected, weighing about 6 lbs/sq ft. This would lower total costs by nearly 4%.
Figure 4.1 Folded Plate Design of Outer Walls
The outer walls were designed as a folded plate (see Figure 4.1). The folded plate design strengthened the relatively slim stone wall (about 18” thick) considerably. It was strong enough to withstand the bending and buckling stresses caused by the wind and roof loads. Folded plate designs are normally used for concrete roofs, but using them for the walls was an interesting concept.
The wall section on the inner part of the folded plate had large outward facing top-hinged window panels. The section of the wall forming the outer part of the folded plate walls had a large recess, which could be used for storage of tools, jigs, and fixtures (see Figure 4.1). A thinner outer wall section meant that fewer materials were required, so the walls would be cheaper.
The main columns were spaced at 70 feet × 70 feet. With this spacing, we anticipated some problems with rainwater disposal because the down-take pipes could at best be spaced every 70 feet. This problem had to be solved during the detailed design, and was a situation about which we were aware. The provision for natural lighting was excellent, with large window areas in the outer walls and the north light roof structure design. Aesthetically, their design was pleasing.
4.7 Results
The factory building construction progressed quite well, in spite of many problems, some outside the company’s control. Within a year of ground breaking, most of the building work was completed. For various personal reasons, I decided to take up a new assignment with another company, so I did not see the last stages of this project through to completion.
I visited the factory five or six years later, and was quite impressed with the design. Several machinists and technicians recognized me as I walked through the factory. They offered greetings and expressed their satisfaction with the building. They were proud in the knowledge that their ideas and contributions had helped make their work environment pleasant. The best part was that the overall cost was much lower than if we had persisted in ‘doing business as usual.’
4.8 Lessons
1.Incorporating customer expectations in the design specifications helps optimize plant design. Objectives can be clearly set out at inception.
2.Specifying success criteria at the outset removes subjectivity in decision-making.
3.Paying competing architectural firms a small fee can help get better designs by releasing their creative juices. It also enables company ‘ownership’ of all the designs.
4.Better design features do not necessarily cost more. This example illustrates how they could save money.
4.9 Principles
1.People like to operate within their comfort zones. It is the leader’s job to recognize the symptoms and shake them out of this situation.
2.Consultants (including architects) must pull their weight—they can add value and help make large savings. To do so, they must be given freedom to exercise their creativity.
3.In order to establish trust in any partnership, we need clarity from the outset. If the objectives are clearly stated up front, people usually rise to the challenge.
…with leadership and expertise
It is paramount for leaders to align the organization so that all are working together to achieve the same objectives.
Peter Wickens, Author.
Author: Mahen Das
Location: 2.4.1 Medium-Sized Semi-Complex Petroleum Refinery
5.1 Background
The refinery received its compensation on a cost-plus basis, i.e., it received all its operating cost, plus a fixed percentage of that cost. Each partner paid a sum in proportion to the amount of crude processed for it. In such an arrangement, there was no motivation for the refinery to function cost effectively. In fact, the higher the cost, the higher was the fixed percentage of compensation, i.e., the profit.
Over the preceding decade, the refinery had undergone a major expansion. As a result, it had focused on new construction and start-up activities, not maintenance of assets as a business process. Although the people were generally well educated and competent, expertise and leadership for maintenance of assets had been lacking.
5.2 Prevailing Culture
The working culture was quite similar to that in most other places at that time. Departments were securely compartmentalized. The Operations department called most of the shots. The Maintenance department was at their beck and call. Process technologists and advisory engineers had little to do with the overall efficiency of operations. The Materials department was within the Finance function and, with the mental make-up of typical bean counters, had little appreciation of consequential loss due to low quality of maintenance materials or their delayed delivery.
The Inspection section (within the engineering function) was very conservative, basing inspection intervals on a fixed-time schedule. Although the regulatory authority allowed considerable flexibility, they preferred to play safe. As a result, all process plants were subjected to annual inspection shutdowns during which almost all equipment was opened for inspection. At the time of these events, risk-based techniques such as RCM and RBI had not been introduced in this refinery, as in the process industry in most of the world. Conservative inspection and maintenance engineers only had past practice for guidance (see also Chapter 10 for some more detailed insights into a similar situation).
5.3 Infrastructure
Computerization of maintenance, inspection, and materials business processes was in its infancy. Computers were used largely as work list repositories. Work planning was fairly advanced. For major projects and plant shutdowns, Critical Path Planning with resource leveling was carried out using commercially available software, CASP®™. However, once the project execution began, there was little or no progress toward monitoring and updating the plan. The critical path charts remained as decorations on the wall.
5.4 Shutdown Work
Preparation for a shutdown mainly meant pulling out last year’s work list, adding the current wishes of the operating and inspection departments, and having it estimated and converted to a critical path plan with CASP®™. The operators added tasks such as shutting down and gas-freeing at the front end, and starting up the plants at the back end separately to this plan. Technologists gave their requirements to the operators for adding to the plan. The project engineers made their own separate mini-plans and appended them parallel to the main plan. There was little coordination of the preparation activities between these departments. In the absence of a milestone chart, these preparations were never completed in time for proper award of work contracts—and contract work was required. This meant that there was never enough time for proper competitive bidding, so prices were higher than necessary. Local contractors maintained a skeleton work force of skilled craftsmen. During big projects, such as a shutdown, they hired temporary workers. Often, they hired whoever was