One of the root causes of the downtime of new process and power plants in Southern Africa is that the EPCM (or the main contractor) skips critical steps during the commissioning phase in a bid to ensure that a project reaches completion and meets clients’ expectations. As you would have thought, in most cases, this oversight becomes very costly to address effectively.
Thus, to mitigate the impact of poor commissioning on plant reliability, operational assessments have to be thorough. There are assessment tools that have proved effective in facilitating this process.
Usually, two parties are involved in a project where negligence of best practices during commissioning results in chronic downtime during plant operation.
On the one hand, you have a client with unrealistic expectations about outcomes.
On the other hand, an EPCM consultant (the contractor) who is keen to tell the client only what they want to hear and hide challenges that must be addressed proactively. This situation is what Allan Champion head of Johannesburg-based Champion Asset Care & Supervision (CACS) calls “a recipe for future operational chaos.”
The root cause
In most cases, the root cause of the problem can be traced back to the feasibility stage of projects. Here, the EPCM often makes unsubstantiated guarantees to the client about delivery – on time, to the expected quality standards, and within budget. In turn, the client expects the asset (the plant) to be running as promised – nothing more, nothing less.
Oversight in commissioning
More often than not, the desperation for completion leads to vital steps during commissioning – an integral part of a project’s operational readiness (OR) assessments – to be rushed. Later, after handover, the client bears the burden of this oversight with unscheduled shutdowns that are very costly to address.
This oversight should not be tolerated at whatever cost, Champion explains:
“In plant construction, commissioning and startup are the two phases that set the tone for the way a plant will run in the future. Commissioning is the most critical part.
So, if you get your commissioning wrong, startup will be chaotic, and this has a huge bearing on plant reliability. Hence, it should be covered meticulously during operational readiness (OR) assessments and planning.”
Unfortunately, sometimes, in the engineering and maintenance sphere, fundamental steps in commissioning are overlooked, Champion observes, as he underlines the impact of recurring commissioning mistakes.
Recurring commissioning mistakes
From his experience working with power and process plants in South Africa and the region, Champion has identified recurring mistakes during operational readiness assessments, particularly in the following areas:
i. Little input from maintenance personnel
The standard practice is that a maintainability and operability assessment should be done prior to final design sign-off.
On the contrary, in projects, there is little or no input from the people who are assigned to maintain the equipment when finalising the design. Champion elaborates: “Some of the oversights in this area could be as basic as the provision for access to equipment which needs to be maintained. At times, you may find that there won’t be enough headroom to allow for lifting.”
ii. Incomplete asset registers
Incomplete asset registers where only major equipment is listed, and critical instrumentation is left out. Later, this becomes a problem when spares for critical instrumentation are needed.
iii. Inadequate critical spare parts
For operational reliability, there should be a clear distinction among strategic, operational, and commissioning spares requirements. Instead, owners (clients) simply take the spares requirements from the OEM manuals. However, what they overlook is that the OEM wants to sell as much as possible to increase the bottom line, but does not necessarily have the required experience to help their clients make informed decisions. “Unsurprisingly, due to incomplete spares reviews at an early stage, operational spares are used during commissioning, leaving the plant vulnerable during startup.”
iv. Incomplete maintenance strategies
Maintenance strategies are not completed prior to commissioning and startup due to a general disregard for maintenance and being stuck in “commissioning” mode.
v. Lack of capabilities
Another factor that contributes to equipment failure is a pertinent skills gap in the maintenance team. “There is a lack of competency in commissioning practices. The operations personnel are not trained or made familiar with the maintenance requirements. Instead, the construction personnel are assigned to commissioning and maintenance.”
vi. Negligence of fundamental engineering standards
Many shortcuts are taken, neglecting engineering standards and safety requirements due to commissioning pressure. Unfortunately, these ‘temporary fixes’ often become permanent, notes Champion.
Similarly, a “plan” to get the plant running quickly becomes the norm. For instance, alterations are made without the necessary document control, and drawings are not updated. Consequently, reaching the plant nameplate capacity is normally achieved months later than estimated.
Unsurprisingly, these problems during commissioning impact plant reliability, safety, and environmental compliance.
Mitigating the consequences
The impact of chaotic commissioning can be mitigated by taking fundamental steps from the onset, contends Champion. “A detailed assessment tool should be used to prepare the plant for operation from an engineering perspective, considering all vital aspects from design to handover. That is why it is important to engage or partner with companies that specialise in Operational Readiness assessments with a proven track record.”
CACS has an assessment tool it uses for commissioning and start-up requirements of process and power plants.
In the second part of the article, Allan Champion will outline vital steps in project commissioning and start-up.
