Operation and Maintenance

Operation is a practical work to produce products or the way of a part or an entire of machine, system, or plant work together smoothly and safely to produce products in accordance with the procedures.

Plant Operation is the managing and controlling the equipment, facilities, systems, or plants in industrial and manufacturing processes to produce desired products. The Plant Operator knowledge and performance will support safe and reliable plant operation that is to ensure the effective implementation and efficient, safety, and reliable process operation. Modern industrial Plant Operation is generally highly automated, with control of the plant's processes centralised in a control room from which valves, gauges, alarms and switches may be operated.

Maintenance is the process of maintaining or preserving activities that performs equipment or facilities to minimise the possibility of damage or the lowering of performance quality because of corrosion, contamination, or deterioration for the continuous operation. The Maintenance activity is to retain facilities in a serviceable condition by functional checks, repairing, or replacing of necessary devices, equipment, machinery, etc.

Turnaround is 1) a process of making a system or plant ready for use again; 2) a scheduled shutdown period when planned the inspection, testing, and preventive maintenance as well as corrective maintenance such as the modification, replacement, or repair is performed; 3) a financial recovery of a company that has been performing poorly.

Turnaround Maintenance (TAM) is the scheduled and periodic shutdown (total or partial) activity of a plant that means the daily plant operations are completely stopped during the turnaround maintenance work. A TAM (Turnaround Maintenance) involves the maintenance related activities: cleaning, inspection, repair, and replacement by a shift operation. The plant turnaround work is an important role in maintaining consistent productive capacity, and normally performed by outside contractors by every scheduled at least 1 ~ 4 years in advance. 

Deactivation and Decommissioning (D&D) is the planned shut-down or removal of a plant or facility from the operation or usage that includes the process of safely closing a plant or facility to retire it from service after its useful life has ended. The Deactivation and Decommissioning Knowledge Management Information Tool (D&D KM-IT: Source: www.dndkm.org/) is a centralized web-based knowledge management information tool built for the D&D that is to improve efficiency by reducing the need to rediscover the knowledge and to promote reuse of the existing knowledge.

Construction Work Completed means that all the works described in the contract documents have been carried out as specified, all appropriate payments have been made, there are no defects and an appropriate handover has taken place, and physically ready to be occupied or to be put into use.

Construction Sequence means that the erection and installation sequences of the project equipment and materials as well as the completion sequences of units, systems or subsystems based on the plant commissioning sequence. The Construction Sequence is developed in accordance with the minimisation of the interference with engineering, procurement and operation activities, and the interface with inter-disciplinary activities at the site. (Refer to the Erection Sequence)

Punch List is a punch items list in which are not conformed to the contract specifications that needs to be corrected and completed to satisfy the terms of the contract. The Punch List is generated in the final phase of construction, by people from all parties walk around the site and note down any issues and deficiencies that need to be resolved before receiving final payment or handover a facility to other, usually attached to the certificate of substantial completion. These lists may be managed as simple written checklists, or in electronic form. Electronic ones are very convenient because the list can be distributed to many related people and can be updated instantly, allowing everyone to see progress. This can be especially important when multiple contractors need to address the same issue.  

Pre-commissioning (PC) is one of the construction activities that involve the verification of functional operability of elements within the system to achieve a state of readiness for the Commissioning and Start-up operation. Sometimes, for the pre-commissioning of Process units require the completion of the commissioning activities of utility facilities. The Pre-commissioning may require an energisation of equipment includes the running and entire testing of the power generation systems, testing of emergency shutdown and control systems and dynamic trials prior to commissioning and start-up operations. The Pre-Commissioning activities should be completed prior to the achievement of the Mechanical Completion Certificate (MCC).

Mechanical Completion (M/C) is the final phase of construction activities to verify the completeness of the constructed plant that each installed component conforms to or is fabricated, installed, and tested in accordance with the project specifications and procedures after all mechanical works including pre-commissioning (PC) activities are completed. A M/C is one of the project key milestones when the M/C is achieved, owner (client) releases the Mechanical Completion Certificate (MCC), and the plant is handed over for the commissioning and operation activities from the construction (normally EPC Contractor) to the plant operation group (normally owner organisation). Practically, some minor works can be transferred and performed during commissioning and operation which are not related safety and performance. Reference guideline is API 700 Plant Completion Checklist.

Mechanical Completion Certificate (MCC) is an owner's acceptance certificate issued to a contractor when the contractor completes or achieves the requirements of Mechanical Completion (M/C) criteria in accordance with the contract.

Provisional Acceptance (PA) is a conditional acceptance but usually without any specific conditions or provisions in the mechanical work (Mechanical Completion (M/C)). The Provisional Acceptance means an owner has accepted the project, but the plant performance is needed to have a verification or confirmation at the actual operation conditions within an agreed period. The plant is handed over to the owner when the contractor achieves the Provisional Acceptance. The Final Acceptance to be achieved after the plant performance is verified or confirmed (Performance Test) based on the agreed contractual requirement.

Provisional Acceptance Certificate (PAC) is an owner's acceptance certificate to contractor when the contractor achieves the requirements of provisional acceptance (PA) criteria in accordance with the contract terms and conditions. (Refer to the Mechanical Completion (M/C), Provisional Acceptance (PC), Hand Over, Care, Custody and Control (CCC), Performance Test, Final Acceptance)

Hand Over (or Turnover) is a responsibility transfer work process, giving of care, custody, and control (CCC) for project to owner at the final stage of project after the plant is constructed, inspected, and tested. The Hand Over activity includes all constructed facilities as well as project documentations as specified in the contract that is one of the project close out activities.

Commissioning is the activities performed in getting processes running to establish normal operation that include the process verification and documentation of the facility and its system components and assemblies are designed, installed, tested, and operated to meet the project requirements of individual units and systems. The Commissioning activity consists of checking and testing all functions according to their design parameters in conditions as close as possible to the design conditions, and the performance tests on mechanical equipment and piping system as well as control systems operability and functionality. The Commissioning activities are performed after construction and pre-commissioning is completed.

Commissioning Sequences are 1) critical utility systems (e.g., control systems (DCS, SIS, F&G, electrical, air system and water system, etc.) will be pre-commissioned and commissioned early and ready for service for the other facility commissioning activities, and then 2) non-critical utility systems (e.g., fuel, steam, demi water, etc.) will be placed into service as required to process facilities commissioning activities such as heater dry outs, proving hot oil circulation loop, amine loop proving, etc. These are completed prior to RFSU (Ready for Start-up), and 3) the process systems are the last to be commissioned as they are typically commissioned, tightness tested and made ready for introducing hydrocarbon for the initial start-up.

Commissioning Completion Certification is a verification activity after all required functions of components and units or plants are successfully completed in according to the design specification and contractual requirements.

Ready for Start-up (RFSU) is a final phase of construction, and an initial operation in which a plant or facility is a mechanically completed and fully commissioned. A RFSU is ready to introduce the feed stock for the operation. 

Start-up is the plant operation activities that is the commencement of an initial operation after achieved the completion of construction works and commissioning activities, and continued until the acceptable production capacity and quality are achieved: successful plant performance test and commercial operation start.

Performance Test is a test or an examination of the plant capacity and quality to achieve the desired results that is to verify the plant meets the specifications and contractual requirement. The Performance Test requires a system or plant to actually perform a task or activity, rather than individual performance tests or inspections referring to specific parts.

Final Acceptance (FA) is an owner’s acceptance of the facility or project from the contractor after the entire work is completed, tested, and inspected in accordance with the contractual requirements. When the Final Acceptance is achieved, owner releases the Final Acceptance certificate to the contractor, and the plant is a permanently handed over to the owner, and confirmed by the making of final payment to the contractor.

Final Acceptance Certificate (FAC) is a certification system work process that is issued by an owner to a contractor after successfully completed the final acceptance criteria such as a performance test including all the contractual obligations and requirements.

Project Close-out activities include the preparation and development of project completion report (e.g., project histories and performance analysis with relevant raw data); project financial close out activities; archive project information to the company organisation; appraisals and demobilise project members. Any minor open issues including agreed punch works can be performed during a turn-around work period, any minor unsolved claims with other parties, and remaining financial follow-up activities such as a final payment to be paid after expiring of the warranty period, and bond returns, etc., can be handed-over to the company dedicated team.

Normal Operation is the phase of process operation between the start-up phase and shutdown phase that is the day-to-day functions of a process, plant, business or corporation.

Emergency Sequence is the detailed procedures on how to make plant and process safe, minimising risks to operators and facilities at all stages covering the PPE, level of intervention which is safe and when to evacuate. The Emergency Sequence in the process operation is an automatic sequence initiated by an interlock that may consist of starting, stopping, opening, or closing equipment in order to render the process safe.

Operation is a practical work to produce products or the way of a part or an entire of machine, system, or plant work together smoothly and safely to produce products in accordance with the procedures.

Plant Operation is the managing and controlling the equipment, facilities, systems, or plants in industrial and manufacturing processes to produce desired products. The Plant Operator knowledge and performance will support safe and reliable plant operation that is to ensure the effective implementation and efficient, safety, and reliable process operation. Modern industrial Plant Operation is generally highly automated, with control of the plant's processes centralised in a control room from which valves, gauges, alarms and switches may be operated.

Operability is an ability of the process or plant that has the capacity and flexibility to achieve a range of operating conditions safely, reliably, profitably and with good dynamic performance and product quality. The Operability ensures to keep the equipment, system or unit and plant in a safe and reliable functioning condition that is pre-defined operational requirements.

Operation Readiness is the capability of a system, unit, or plant to perform the functions as per the design and specifications that is the process of preparing the owner of an asset under construction organisation to the owner operation organisation, at the point of delivery and handover facilities, the owner is fully prepared to assume ownership of the asset, accepts responsibility for performing the safe and efficient operation of that asset. The Operation Readiness is the management practices for performing pre-start-up reviews of new processes or processes that have been shut down for the turn around works, modifications, or any other reasons. These practices verify the operational readiness of a process and help to ensure that the process is safe to start or restart. Identifies organisational tasks, roles and responsibilities, assists with start-up and operations and maintenance, focuses on high priority risks, and analyses opportunities.

Operations Readiness and Assurance (OR&A, Ops Readiness) is a systematic management approach to safety, health, environment, reliability, and availability, and an asset efficiency to ensure a smooth handover from the project to operation phase that is used in the oil and gas, hydrocarbon, and energy industries. OR&A is the process of preparing the custodians of an asset under construction that is fully developed an ownership of the asset, accepts responsibility for performing the safe and efficient operation, and capable of achieving Ready to Operate status by the operational organisation at the time of handover from the project execution team or contractor.

Backwash is the backward movement of water caused by passing through that is the reverse circulation.

Barrel Per Calendar Day (BPCD) is a unit of a capacity of refinery. A BPCD is an amount of input that a distillation facility can process under usual operating conditions.

Blowdown

Maintenance is the process of maintaining or preserving activities that performs equipment or facilities to minimise the possibility of damage or the lowering of performance quality because of corrosion, contamination, or deterioration for the continuous operation. The Maintenance activity is to retain facilities in a serviceable condition by functional checks, repairing, or replacing of necessary devices, equipment, machinery, etc.

Maintenance Readiness is a maintenance programmes that covers the maintenance planning and implementation for the start-up and ongoing operations.

Maintenance Scope is to provide the services of all necessary personnel, specialised equipment and material including the maintenance technology such as engineering, and maintenance activity, inspection, training, etc. The Maintenance types are: Proactive maintenance; Preventive maintenance; Predictive maintenance; and Corrective maintenance. The Maintenance Scope can include contract maintenance crews performing either routine, supplemental, or total contract maintenance.

Maintainability is the ease and speed of the system restoring to the normal operational status that is to prevent unexpected working condition, to maximise a life cycle of equipment and facilities, and to maximise efficiency, reliability, and safety operations. The Maintainability is the probability of performing a successful repair or replace using the prescribed practices and procedures for serviceability and reparability. This is similar to system reliability analysis except that the random variable of interest in maintainability analysis is time-to-repair rather than time-to-failure.

Capital Spare is identified through the Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) that determines the probability of failure through a normal operation and the scheduled Preventative Maintenance (PM) programme. Capital spares are a secondary tier of the inventory, available within a specified time frame. (Refer to the Insurance Spare; Spare Parts Optimisation)

Condition Monitoring (CM) is the process of monitoring a parameter of condition in machinery with respect to some independent parameter to indicate the current and future ability of a structure, system, or component to function within acceptance criteria.

Condition Based Inspection (CBI) is the ability to calculate the expected wear rate of equipment or its components to determine the expected life span, which is calculated based on the information obtained from inspection. The optimal replacement threshold is often based on minimisation of long-run average maintenance costs per unit time due to preventive and failure replacements. It is assumed that inspections are performed at equal time intervals and that the corresponding cost is negligible. (Opposed to the Risk Based Inspection (RBI))

Consequence of Failure (CoF)

Turnaround is 1) a process of making a system or plant ready for use again; 2) a scheduled shutdown period when planned the inspection, testing, and preventive maintenance as well as corrective maintenance such as the modification, replacement, or repair is performed; 3) a financial recovery of a company that has been performing poorly.

Turnaround Maintenance (TAM) is the scheduled and periodic shutdown (total or partial) activity of a plant that means the daily plant operations are completely stopped during the turnaround maintenance work. A TAM (Turnaround Maintenance) involves the maintenance related activities: cleaning, inspection, repair, and replacement by a shift operation. The plant turnaround work is an important role in maintaining consistent productive capacity, and normally performed by outside contractors by every scheduled at least 1 ~ 4 years in advance. 

Debottlenecking is an act of removing the problems or constraints within a piece of equipment, a system or process that is the improvement of a process from being workable, more efficient, or higher productivity. The Debottlenecking increases capacity for a fraction of the cost of building new facilities that requires a systematic analysis of the system to identify the specific areas causing the constraints by which the analysis may involve studying data, conducting simulations, or utilising process optimisation techniques. 

Overhaul is to repair or replace every parts of a plant that should work whole.

Retrofit is the process of modifying the machine or equipment with parts, components, or accessories that was not included originally to improve its performance. 

Revamping is the act of improving, modifying, or re-structuring a process or plant that removes obstacles, replaces or upgrades facilities, or corrects constraints to achieve the increased productivity and/or capacity in the existing plant (Brownfield Project). The Critical considerations in a Revamping project: Integrating engineering, operations, and maintenance teams; Safety in mind and actions; Gathering accurate information of the existing equipment and systems; Operations and shutdown schedule.

Scale-up is the action of increasing in size or number. The Scale-up in the expansion of process is the steps involved in transferring a manufacturing process or section of the process from a laboratory scale to level of commercial production.

Deactivation and Decommissioning (D&D) is the planned shut-down or removal of a plant or facility from the operation or usage that includes the process of safely closing a plant or facility to retire it from service after its useful life has ended. The Deactivation and Decommissioning Knowledge Management Information Tool (D&D KM-IT: Source: www.dndkm.org/) is a centralized web-based knowledge management information tool built for the D&D that is to improve efficiency by reducing the need to rediscover the knowledge and to promote reuse of the existing knowledge.

Decommissioning is a process of permanently and officially stopping of use and removing from service or usage.

Nuclear Decommissioning is the safely removing a nuclear facility or site from service, and reducing residual radioactivity to a level that permits either to release the property for unrestricted use, or to release the property under restricted conditions. Nuclear Decommissioning includes the activities such as planning, physical and radiological characterisation, facility and site decontamination, dismantling, and contaminated materials management, etc.

Decontamination is a process of cleaning to remove of hazardous substances from objects. (Refer to the DECON (Decontamination))

Asset is something valuable person or thing that is owned by a person or organisation. The Asset can be divided into a tangible and intangible asset.

Asset Integrity Management (AIM) is a process safety management system for ensuring the integrity of assets throughout the life cycle. An Asset Management is to effectively manage assets to gain maximum value, profitability and returns while safeguarding personnel, facility, and the environment, protecting health, safety, and environment. AIM program incorporates design, maintenance, inspection, process, operation, and management concept from the design of new facilities to maintenance management to decommissioning for all these disciplines impact the integrity of infrastructure and equipment.

Asset Management is the systematic activities and practices that is the ability of an asset and asset system to perform its required function effectively and efficiently. The Asset Management performs the risks and expenditures over a life cycle period for the purpose of achieving its organisational strategic plan.

Asset Allocation is an investment strategy that is a spread of fund investments among different investment forms.

Asset Category is a grouping of investments including people, chemicals, information, environment, equipment, facilities, and activities or operations.

Asset Integrity is an ability of the asset to perform its required function effectively and efficiently that is properly designed and installed in accordance with specifications and remains fit for purpose.

Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) is the management of an organisation's entire value chain of physical assets and infrastructure throughout the entire business lifecycle. An EAM includes the design, construction, commissioning, operations, maintenance and decommissioning or replacement of fixed assets like structures, machinery, or plants as well as moving assets such as vehicles to reduce costs, improve quality and efficiency, and safeguard health, safety and the environment.

Environmental Asset

Care, Custody, and Control (CCC) is a term used primarily in liability coverages to cover the property under a property insurance that is not owned by the insured, but which is legally in the insured’s possession or under his control. (e.g., Rental Equipment) A CCC is an event by which the assumption of responsibility for the safety, operating, and maintenance of a fixed asset by the operating organisation that is normally accepted upon mechanical completion of the asset.

Computer Aided Facility Management (CAFM) is a software platform that streamlines the facility management and maintenance. A CAFM software enables facility managers to plan, execute, and monitor all activities involved in space and workplace management, asset management, reactive and planned preventative maintenance, operational facility services, room reservations, and any other customer service request.

Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) is the computer software for planning, scheduling, and documenting for the maintenance activities. A CMMS can organise and manage the facilities preventive maintenance tasks, safety, and including work order generations, work instructions, parts and labour expenditure tracking, parts inventories, and equipment histories.

Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) is the energy efficiency rating that is the measure of the overall energy using efficiency of the properties. The Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) is placed on a colour-coded scale from A (very efficient) to G (inefficient), and states what the energy efficiency rating could be improved, and highlights cost effective ways to achieve a better rating. The Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) shows the amount of energy used per m²; and the level of carbon dioxide emissions (given in tonnes per year), and is valid for 10 years from when issued.

Equipment Arrangement Drawing shows a top and side-view of the part of plant with which the top-view is similar to a detailed Plot Plan drawing. The Equipment Arrangement allows adequate access for construction and maintenance people and equipment, and verifies the construction sequences, spaces for removal and replacement of the critical equipment, or for functional expansions of facility, contingency allows for late delivery of large item, and a module and skid delivery with full or partial modular programme, etc.

Fire Insurance is a type of property insurance (Home or Fire) that provides protection against most risks to the property including the industrial facilities, such as fire, theft, and some weather damages. The Fire Insurance is a standard fire insurance policy that usually covers fire due to any cause, subject to some exceptions.

Hazardous Operability (HAZOP) study is a systematic and critical examination by the engineering with operation support that is possibly the most important of safety reviews pursued as the standard practice in any process development. A HAZOP uses a key word approach in identifying from normal operation, how it may occur and hazard potential in which the causes may include mal-operation or mal-function of individual items of equipment and consequential effects on the facility. A HAZOP is carried out as a conclusion to Front End Engineering Design (FEED) and at the commencement of Detailed Design and Engineering, and may be regarded as a safety verification step. 

Hydrostatic Test (or Hydro Test)