March 21, 2014 by AP-Networks Leave a Comment Amsterdam, The Netherlands | March 19th – 20th, 2014 This year’s TINC Europe event was the largest to date, with a more than 33% increase in attendance over last year. The conference boasted attendees representing 23 companies and 19 countries that spanned the globe from Chili to Malaysia. As industry has evolved, we’ve seen leadership recognize turnarounds as high priority business initiatives. But while turnaround importance has been recognized, execution is still a challenge on many fronts. Across industry, there is a need for stronger steering and preparation, as well as greater emphasis on post-turnaround critique. Ultimately, the lessons learned from these critiques are what drive continuous improvement and help to move industry forward. At TINC Europe 2014, presenters were on hand from DOW Chemical, SAPREF, BP E&P, Flint Hills Resources, Shell, and BASF Antwerp to address these and other challenges, and to provide insight on the steps their companies have taken to achieve turnaround excellence. Presentations Keynote speaker Theo Knijff, General Manager KIC/Senior Maintenance Manager at DOW Chemical, explored a trend that companies throughout Europe are dealing with: As turnaround budgets, intervals, and durations have become more stringent, and safety, reliability, and environmental requirements have continued to grow, companies have seen their workforces age and retire. This leaves an increasingly inexperienced workforce to face mounting challenges. Theo points to one conclusion: the need for innovation. Among these innovations, Theo highlighted the need for a greater reliance on technology. Archived job packages, repair & overhaul plans, inspection plans, and project scopes create a repository of company knowledge, and provide tools for less experienced workers to learn from. John Alkemade, Director, EMEA at AP-Networks, delved into AP-Networks’ turnaround database to analyze the progress industry has made, and the steps that still need to be taken. While both downstream and upstream facilities have made improvements in turnaround predictability, as well as cost and schedule performance, these improvements have plateaued in recent years. And while it’s true that the majority of facilities have work processes in place, many facilities aren’t utilizing these processes effectively. While many factors are at play in this “progress plateau,” there are three that stand out: lack of engaged leadership, lack of accountability for holding to work processes, and lack of true scope freeze. John’s presentation also introduced us to “Mega Complexity” turnarounds—an addition to the AP-Networks scale of Low, Medium, and High Complexity. This classification is evidence of the growing scale of turnarounds in recent years, and the added burdens being placed on turnaround teams. Anil Jugree, Event Manager at SAPREF, walked us through the most complex turnaround event in the history of the company, a turnaround classified by AP-Networks as Mega Complexity. Anil detailed the strategies that led to the turnaround execution being rated by AP-Networks as top quartile performance in terms of cost, safety, and schedule. One of the most important keys to SAPREF’s success was a highly visible, highly engaged steering team. The team drove significant improvements in awareness and readiness throughout the organization. Additionally, the company focused heavily on upfront planning, seeking to get out in front of problems and prevent unexpected delays. Next up was Stephen Kydd, Shutdown Manager at BP E&P, who walked us through the company’s Magnus 2013 Turnaround, a complex upstream event. Once again we saw the value of initiating robust planning and preparation well in advance of execution. To begin, the turnaround team identified clear business drivers, and then developed corresponding KPI sets relating to the overall turnaround, as well as to engineering & operations readiness. One of the biggest challenges the team faced was that of scaling up the preparation team personnel, as well as the construction activity & materials, to accommodate the size and complexity of the turnaround. Brad Hase, General Turnaround Leader at Flint Hills Resources, detailed the evolution of the FHR Turnaround Work Process from an unused binder collecting dust on a shelf, to a robust, software driven standard process utilized throughout the organization. Among the company’s most important lessons learned while putting together the FHR Turnaround Work Process were the need for commitment from leadership, for a reporting structure that provides accountability, for quarterly meetings with refinery leaders to establish a unified vision, and for educating members of both the turnaround and capital projects organizations on the work process. Currently, FHR is in a state of continuous improvement, further honing their work process to achieve ever more competitive results. Leon van Hout, Senior Consultant at AP-Networks, explored the relationship between process maturity, organizational maturity, and turnaround success. While a mature work process can achieve predictable results, and a mature organization can achieve competitive results, it takes a mature organization following a mature work process to achieve competitive, predictable, repeatable results and to truly optimize turnaround performance. Hank van der Doel, Senior Operations Turnaround Advisor, EMEA & East Region at Shell, guided us through the company’s journey toward operational excellence. One of the big problems Hank’s team had to contend with was the lack of granularity in the turnaround work process. There were a very limited number of operations-oriented milestones in the plan, which stood in contrast to the many operations-influenced and operations-driven activities underlying these milestones. When developing a new, more structured work process, the Shell team made sure to develop plan-to-plan milestones with detailed preparation phase tasks. They also implemented milestone tracking and progress reporting. In the end, Shell identified four key elements for effective implementation: 1) Involve end users in work process development; 2) Ensure enterprise acceptance; 3) Get strong support from site management; and 4) Involve all personnel in the formal introduction of the process. Marc Van Thillo, Maintenance Manager, Petrochemicals at BASF Antwerp, detailed the lessons learned from the company’s 2013 Steamcracker Turnaround. A 700 man-hour, 42 day event, the turnaround encompassed 5000 shutdown items and 144 contracts and subcontracts. All told, the BASF team delivered the turnaround on time, in budget, and with zero lost time incidents. Many elements go into a successful turnaround, and as such, there were many planning and execution actions that Mark highlighted as initiatives to repeat in the organization’s next turnaround. These included thorough planning, through inspection throughout execution, and recognition & reward of safety behavior and quality work. More than anything, BASF benefitted from a thorough look back at the Steamcracker Turnaround. The lessons learned that Marc walked us through were compiled from questionnaires distributed in the final week of shutdown, evaluation sessions with contractors immediately following the shutdown, and ten page evaluation reports by all involved teams that added up to 40 reports in total. There’s no doubting the importance—or the difficulty—of successfully integrating capital projects with turnarounds. In fact, as Bobby Vichich, VP, Turnaround Services at AP-Networks, revealed, inability to integrate capital projects is the number two leading cause of turnaround failure throughout industry. Bobby singled out effective long range planning as being paramount to successful integration. Teams need to begin looking at least two turnaround interval cycles ahead, and they need to combine that look ahead with the development of a Documented Event Integration Plan. Bobby left us with a sobering statistic: Industry only completes about half of the key capital project and turnaround integration activities. Better integration is a challenge placed before all industry, and one that promises to be an important goal moving forward. Next came the Q&A session with our Expert Panel. Sitting on this year’s panel were: Stephen Kydd | Shutdown Manager at BP E&P Anil Jugree | Event Manager at SAPREF Hank van der Doel | Senior Operations Turnaround Advisor, EMEA & East Region at Shell Theo Knijff | General Manager KIC/Senior Maintenance Manager at DOW Chemical Moderated by Bobby Vichich, the panelists offered their thoughts on questions that had been submitted by attendees throughout the conference. The audience got in on the action as well, utilizing electronic polling devices to vote on questions ranging in topic from scope freeze date targets versus reality, to how many time on tools hours are achieved in a typical 10 hour shift. Their answers provided a valuable look at turnaround trends throughout industry. Breakout Sessions Breakout Sessions are the hallmark of every TINC event, and this year was no exception. These sessions provide attendees the chance to break off into small groups and discuss the issues that are affecting them most. This year, attendees had the opportunity to choose two of the following topics: Turnaround Cost Estimating Practices Integrating Projects with the Business Planning Cycle Craft Attraction, Retention, and Skill Set Avoiding Turnaround Surprises The best part about TINC Breakout Sessions is that they don’t end when time is called. Instead, they spill out over hallways, dinner tables, and coffee machines, fostering a sense community and a shared knowledge base. Takeaways from TINC Europe 2014 This year, our presenters drove home an important lesson time and again: plan early, and plan in detail. Following this strategy, the organizations we heard from were able to successfully execute turnarounds that tested the limits of their site capability. And these are limits that are being tested throughout industry. Turnarounds are increasing in size and complexity, growing to encompass more capital project work and larger maintenance tasks as companies spread out turnaround intervals. At the same time, companies are seeking to run leaner and achieve more competitive outcomes from these events. As experienced workers retire, a largely untested workforce stands poised to meet these challenges. Thorough planning and preparation provide one way to overcome these hurdles. But as our presenters made clear, even the most robust plan requires an engaged leadership to steer the ship, and accountability measures in place to ensure that workers truly and effectively utilize the plan. As the glue that holds this all together, many organizations are working to develop standardized turnaround plans and work processes that they can rely on to achieve predictable turnaround outcomes. As our keynote speaker Theo Knijff articulated, these work processes can bridge the gap in skills and experience that many organizations are facing. It wasn’t just our presenters who had a lot to say. Throughout Breakout Sessions, over meals, and in Q&A sessions following every presentation, our attendees were full of thought-provoking questions and eye-opening insights. As always, AP-Networks was excited to share in the discussion. We thank all of the participants of TINC Europe 2014, and look forward enthusiastically to TINC Europe 2015. Media Contact: communications@www.ap-networks.com