Shutdowns, turnarounds and outages

In many industrial sectors, a shortage of personnel is a concerning reality. Companies struggle to find and retain skilled workers, leading to increased pressure on those already in position. In this context, enhancing workforce value and applying the TPM principle can play a crucial role in attracting and retaining workers.

In my role as a consultant, one comment I often receive never ceases to surprise me. Yet, it comes up no matter what type of organization we diagnose: "I don't have time to do the work associated with my job title".

Kitting is a method of pre-assembling all the key components into kits, in order to simplify the repair and/or maintenance process of an equipment. It allows technicians and other professionals to have the necessary parts, materials and tools to perform repairs and other services quickly and efficiently, which makes kitting a key element of efficient maintenance planning.

Planned outages are a costly for plants: specialized trades and equipment replacements, combined the costs of downtime itself, make for an expensive few days or weeks.

Our client, a paper mill in Quebec, was experiencing frequent machine breaks that were causing emergency shutdowns. At an average of $8,000 per hour, these incidents were having a major impact on the plant’s productivity: between $300,000 and $500,000 in losses per year. It became evident that to optimize repair timing, detect probable failures and restart correctly, their planned shutdown strategies needed to be revised.

With intense international competition, growing concerns for the environment and thining margins, the current skilled labour shortage only intensifies a growing list of challenges faced by the Pulp and Paper industry.