Andrew
W. Sloley
The Distillation Group, Inc.*
P.O. Box 10105
College Station, Texas 77842-0105
Published in Hydrocarbon Processing
September 1996
Abstract copyright Andrew W. Sloley
1997
Both the Teamwork concept and the Ownership concept
are two highly visible management theory concepts filtering their
way through the refining industry. Both aim at improving bottom-line
profit by empowering employees. In concept, application of both
ideas can significantly improve performance. Project specific
groups, especially, are often expected to be fruitful applications
of teamwork and ownership ideas. In application, both ideas often
fail to live up to their promise. Why is this and what is required
for successful application of Teamwork and Ownership ideas? We
explore the reasons and some remedies for this and briefly cover
a case history on an FCC recovery section revamp.
In brief, we will cover:
Definition of teamwork and ownership,
Situation in the current work environment,
Background assumptions for a typical project manager,
Concentrating on the individual’s goals for motivation,
Case study.
Our attempt here is to cover what works and what does not at
a practical level rather than on a theoretical basis. All the
evidence is that such concentration on practice rather than theory
is lacking. The little data that are available show that project
execution performance (for major projects) has only 18% of projects
meeting all the following criteria:
Cost deviation of ± 10% of authorization,
Execution schedule completed with less than three months
slip,
Startup time of less than four months,
85%+ of nameplate capacity achieved within 12 months of starting
operation.
Of these, management control issues (schedule and budget) are
the only area that showed improvement since the middle 1970s.
Startup and operations performance has remained constant over
that period. This is in spite of the fact that application of
new processing technologies has slowed over the same time period.
(How many ‘new’ refining processes have been commercialized
since 1970?)
The author’s experience is that revamp projects have much
lower success rates than new construction. Revamp projects bring
along additional problems. Common revamp problems include:
Execution of projects with existing plant personnel that
lack specific experience,
More complex engineering due to constraints of the existing
unit,
On-the-run and turnaround execution concurrently with unit
maintenance.
The discussion concentrates on practical discussion related
to revamp projects instead of new construction. The target audience
for this discussion is a project manager or project engineer that
puts most of their effort into revamp projects rather than day-to-day
plant operations.
11 pages.
Electronic versions available in Adobe Acrobat PDF format files
049.PDF 1945k.
