My Most Successful Tips to Improve Asset Integrity, Reliability, Maintenance, and Turnarounds – Part 1: Program Management Office

Introduction

This article documents my most successful tips to improve asset integrity, reliability, maintenance, and turnarounds (TA) at process facilities. These recommendations are the result of over 35 years of experience as a full-time asset integrity, reliability, maintenance, engineering, and TA Manager at BP, Phillips 66, and DNV, where I led numerous strategic improvement programs, ensuring the safe and efficient operation of 41 facilities in 17 countries across the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia. These recommendations are not meant to replace any standard or industry practice. What I am sharing is what worked and did not work during the implementation of these programs.

Many of these sites were high in cost due to inefficiencies and ongoing, yet limited catch-up work, and some operated in low-margin regions and challenging operational environments, such as those with limited access to materials or qualified personnel. On average, these projects resulted in >30% sustainable reduced spend and >20% margin improvements.

Even more important, improvements to asset integrity, reliability, maintenance, and turnarounds also resulted in enhanced safety and process safety, with all sites experiencing significant reductions in recordable rates, first aid incidents, leaks, and fires.

Another added benefit that helped keep these programs sustainable was the stability achieved in the prioritization, planning, and execution process. Everything became more predictable, which allowed for more accurate forecasting of budgets that helped leadership make better-informed, forward-looking decisions.

World-class plants are not built by budgets — they’re built by clarity, structure, consistency, having a learning culture, and a long-term approach. Sustainable efficiency and profitability are achieved when maintenance is managed like a business, not a cost center. You will begin your journey towards sound asset integrity and reliability when you start seeing inspection and maintenance as an investment.

Maintenance spend optimization should be based on the implementation of best practices in maintenance management and should not be driven solely by external benchmark numbers or across-the-board cost-cutting initiatives. Deep understanding of benchmark data is fundamental when identifying what and how to implement the correct best practices.

Getting there is not easy. It takes time, intention, alignment across the entire organization, and a site leadership team that sets the right tone by what they systematically pay attention to (which means anything from what they notice and comment on, to what they measure, control, and reward). Leaders are the role models of the culture they create [1].

One last comment before I start sharing my tips: walk the floors. Senior managers should regularly take the time to walk around the workplace and talk to people in informal ways, to give them the opportunity to voice what’s going well and what can be improved. I applied this from early on in my career, and I’m glad I did, as it kept the teams motivated, engaged, with a reason to be there and do better.

This article is the first in a series of five parts:

• Part 1: Program Management Office
• Part 2: Asset Integrity
• Part 3: Reliability
• Part 4: Maintenance
• Part 5: Major Planned Turnarounds

Let’s start with the Program Management Office.