Unifying Turnaround Procedures Across Global Sites

The Corporate Excellence group at a northern European refiner felt that its procedures for turnaround cost estimating, scheduling, and control were out-of-date with current industry best practices and needed to be completely rewritten. An attempt to update the procedures in-house revealed a lack of sufficient time and expertise, especially regarding cross-industry benchmarks. As a result, the group sought external support.

Objective

The goal was to completely rewrite the turnaround procedures and align them with current industry standards. In addition, the new procedures needed to offer a standardized approach across each of the client’s sites in Europe and Asia-Pacific. This second task was complicated by the fact that each of the sites had, for some years, developed their own ways of doing things, suited to site preferences, local contractor capabilities, and local tax laws.

Becht Approach

Becht was approached for this work due to the recognized expertise of our team in improving turnaround cost estimation and bringing a measure of standardization across the industry. Our consultants have achieved this through their involvement with the main association across the process industries for cost and schedule control, the Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering (AACE).

Solution

Becht reviewed the existing turnaround procedures from each site, benchmarked them against current industry standards, and developed a draft set of standardized procedures that combined the common areas, closed gaps relative to best practices, and highlighted significant differences across sites.

To ensure alignment, Becht then facilitated a series of collaborative sessions with the cost and scheduling teams from all client locations. At these meetings, the differences in approach were slowly and respectfully reviewed and aligned.

By the end of the engagement, the client had a complete set of procedures for cost estimating, schedule preparation, and execution control that all of the client sites had “bought into.”

Client Value

The improved work procedures provided the client with a consistent, best-practice-based approach to turnaround planning and execution across its global operations. The Corporate Excellence Manager for Turnarounds expressed appreciation and summed it up by saying, “Thanks again, and it was a pleasure to work with you!”