Becht Engineering has significant consulting expertise with improving reliability for chemical plants and refineries as well as upstream projects for oil and gas production. This multi-disciplinary task involves the clients’ representatives (operations, maintenance, inspection and engineering) together with Becht Engineering corrosion, mechanical integrity and reliability experts.
“It can’t happen!” “Our control systems have redundancies that won’t allow us to lose view!” “If we lose view, we’ll just move to the field control room and run the unit.” The comments above are what I have heard in the past when discussing emergency procedures for loss of view and loss of control on […]
Do you feel lucky, well do ya? Famous words uttered by Inspector Harry Callahan in one of my favorite Clint Eastwood movies is certainly no way to run a refinery, chemical plant or other hazardous operation. However, in real life we find operations relying on luck, tribal knowledge, personnel memory vs. standards and procedures and […]
Risk-based Inspection (RBI) has been around the refining and petrochemical industry for many years. When the original task group was put together to investigate RBI in the early 1990s, lessons learned from other industries that had been practicing this approach even earlier were incorporated into the two standards that API developed, API RP 580 – […]
When faced with a task of improving something, you assess the current situation, define the future state and determine the path to get to the future state. Improving Reliability at a site should follow the same process. This blog focuses on the first part – Assessing the current situation. To understand what we are trying […]
The steam methane reformer (SMR) is the most complex operation and equipment design in an ammonia, hydrogen, or methanol plant. It is also the most expensive single item of capital expenditure and the dominant energy and variable cost consumer in the plant. Most reformer operations have a ‘set & forget’ culture when it comes to […]
In Part 1 we observed that some of the best results come from organizations with poor maintenance work processes and some organizations with a great work process have poor results. It was also noted that the maintenance work process itself only accounts for 10% to 20% of the total maintenance value. In Part 2 we […]
In our industry, most companies are continuously managing risk, efficiency, and production interruptions that may have resulted in millions of dollars lost. To mitigate these unplanned events and improve productivity, improvement projects executed, employee training is conducted and equipment strategies are implemented. Reliable equipment that is 100% available and ready when needed is a very […]
Becht made an interesting observation on maintenance processes after consulting in several facilities — Some of the best results come from organizations with poor maintenance work processes and some organizations with a great work process have poor results. Why is this? The reason is that maintenance results or maintenance value is dependent on more than […]
One of the bigger questions faced by equipment owners is whether spare parts should be purchased and stored until needed or to save the cash and take the risk that equipment will fail unannounced. The decision is fraught with strong opinions, and cost either capital or expense. When profit is being lost because the equipment […]
Now that 2020 is behind us, let’s focus on making improvements in 2021! Becht invites you to try a feature of our BechtCONNECT service: Unit Health Assessments. Becht will assist you in targeting operational and margin optimization with a focus on cost-effective solutions. We’re approaching Unit Health Assessments in a new way to capture value […]
