Technology Transfer Services Blog

TTS and TBR Strategies came together in November to perform an Operations and Maintenance assessment for Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) in Nigeria. Tony Foskey of TTS along with Preston Ingalls and Elias Acquah of TBR Strategies spent seven days assessing the Agabada and Okolama gas plants with the intention of developing a cohesive strategy for improvement.

“There is a tremendous amount of work to be done at these plants,” said Ingalls. “Oil output at Ogabada and Okloma has been reduced from 1.2 million barrels of oil per day to around 300,000, and this is due largely in part to an insufficiently trained workforce.”

TTS and TBR Strategies will return to Nigeria in late January, during which time they will establish a plan to make the Okolama and Agbada facilities world-class by 2012. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, and TTS is eager to combine forces with TBR Strategies to improve the quality of life there by introducing the culture to new technologies.

Every day around the country, maintenance personnel are severely injured or killed when working around or with electricity. Every time I read an article of this nature, I ask myself, “What kind of Electrical Safety Program is in place at that company?” The question I should really be asking is “Did the company have an existing electrical safety program?”

I have assisted in the implementation of Electrical Safety Programs, but I realize now that my view has been a little narrow. The majority of my time that has been spent on electrical safety programs has been spent with a focus on what is really only a very small portion of the overall requirements. When the question “How do you build an Electrical Safety Program?” was considered, I had to stop and think for a moment. I needed to change my perspective from narrow to more broad and consider things beyond what the technicians who I was training were seeing, and realize how those views then affected the efforts to create a viable and functioning Electrical Safety Program.

After much thought, the following is what I would do to create a viable Electrical Safety Program; one that actually works instead of one that just looks good on paper:

Establish Commitment – Implementing an electrical safety program has to be a fully involved process from the top down. If there is resistance from anyone involved – from CEO down to the last new hire – the program will be ineffective and can have disastrous consequences.

Understand the Rules – It is crucial to know which rules apply to your workplace and understand the rules you are required to follow. The rules will dictate how much you have to do and, in many cases, how to do it.

Hazard Awareness – Get out and thoroughly inspect the workplace. You cannot build an effective program unless you have some understanding of the hazards in the workplace. Do not be afraid to get outside help. There are multiple sources to obtain help, if needed, and those sources devote much of their time to finding hazards that you may overlook. This should also be used as an engineering tool to identify areas where engineering changes are needed to eliminate or reduce the hazards identified.

Develop a Plan – Develop a plan for what needs to be done and get a general idea of who is responsible for each aspect of the plan. Use this as a tool for the next step in the process, and do not be afraid to make additional changes as needed.

Establish Responsibilities – Get the right person in the right job, clearly delineate their responsibilities and provide them with the tools and knowledge they need to fulfill their responsibilities.

Establish a Timeline – Be realistic and be prepared for program development to take time, effort and money. Be ready for growing pains. These may include, but certainly are not limited to, such ‘pains’ as reluctance from maintenance to change the in which it works and operations fighting the additional time requirements that maintenance may then require.

Train – Everyone in the company will need to understand their duties and responsibilities in the program. Not everyone will need the same level of training.

Evaluate – Training must be evaluated for effectiveness. There are several ways this can be done; use the one that best fits.

Develop a Written Policy – Once you have had the time to get the program in place and have gotten everyone trained, formalize the process into a company policy that includes a regular review cycle to ensure the policy stays up to date.

Review – Rules are constantly changing, equipment design, etc., and you need to stay as current as possible. If this seems a little time consuming, don’t be afraid to keep a consultant on the side to advise you of the new rule changes. Ultimately, however, how you do it is less important than actually and actively doing it.

Roughly 35% of manufacturing facilities in the United States are reporting an inability to staff their skilled trades positions with qualified employees – and unfortunately – this trend is only going to worsen in the coming years.  
 
The average age of a power plant operator is 54, and skilled trades employees in the petrochemical industry have an average age of 57.  This means that in the next five years, our clients can expect as many as eighty percent of their operators and maintenance personnel to retire.  The tribal knowledge these employees have allows facilities to operate in a safe and efficient manner, and when they retire, a marked increase in unplanned downtime and safety related problems will occur unless the issue is handled proactively.
 
The common question is “What do we do?” The answer lies in one word: consequences.  Does your organization have consequences for good job performance and poor job performance?  If it doesn’t, then you can expect more problems in the future.  World-class organizations are moving to structured qualification programs with pay rates based on an employee’s ability, as opposed to a limited “one-salary-fits-all” model.  The employees who attend training will be rewarded by attaining a higher compensation for the skills they can perform.
 
A bidding war for highly qualified operators and technicians is coming in the near future, and if you want to stay on top, you need to have consequences. There is a saying for the one-salary-fits-all company: “If you’re good, it pays to stay and if you’re bad, it pays the same.” If this is your business model, you can count on your higher performing employees to move to another company for better compensation.

What is peak power, and how can we reduce it? Peak power is the amount of energy customers consume during peak usage periods. We can reduce peak power by using alternate energy sources, like natural gas from storage, wind, or solar power, as supplements during these periods.

Ginni Stieva, of Industrial Equipment News, explains how peak shaving can control energy demands and cut costs. All businesses are charged for energy consumption based on the kWh they use during a billing period, but commercial and industrial customers are hit with extra costs as well. These companies are billed for a “capacity charge,” which is based on the costumer’s highest level of energy use. While this fee helps pay for the infrastructure that is necessary to deliver the peak demand level of energy, it can also account for 25% of the company’s utility costs.

Capacity charges calculated based on several factors, including:

• peak demand during the previous month
• average usage over a set period of months
• seasonal variations
• time-of-day variations
• ratchet charges

There are methods, however, that can be used to decrease these charges. By using economical means of reducing just a small amount of demand during key periods of a 24-hour cycle, communities can greatly reduce demand costs on their power bills. Using supplemental sources prevents pipelines from having to expand their delivery facilities just to accommodate short periods of extremely high demand. An animation from the California Energy Commission illustrates the process in detail.
To institute peak shaving, it is necessary to both reduce and increase. Reducing personal and commercial consumption just a little during peak periods allows for a reduction in the amount of coal, oil and nuclear fuel used to produce power. The increase comes from utilizing localized power production from wind and solar sources during peak periods. Also, when demand information is available, a company can take action to reduce the demand from the utility before the threshold is reached.

Common methods of peak shaving being used by energy consumers include load scheduling, using onsite generation and load shedding. Energy accounts for a large amount of a company’s operations costs. It is important to keep up with peak shaving practices and other sources of energy that can be used to lower costs.

Author: Phillip Smeall, Process Improvement Specialist

In today’s global marketplace, understanding the dynamics of the culture in which you do business can make the difference between a successful business deal and one that goes up in flames. TTS’s recent acquisition of an ExxonMobil contract extension includes work in 12 vastly different countries, including Nigeria, Australia, Malaysia, Qatar and Germany.

Keri Clarke, an International Business graduate student at University of South Florida, has insight to offer on the essentials of good international business etiquette. Clarke, who has traveled and worked extensively throughout Europe, South America and Central America, knows that cultural awareness is of the utmost importance when creating and maintaining lasting relationships — whether personal or professional. “The first rule of thumb is to assume things are different until proven similar,” said Clarke. “It is important not to make assumptions, because they come from beliefs, which may not be the same beliefs as the culture you are in.” Interpersonal skills, Clarke suggests, are the most difficult to master in a cross-cultural setting, but are also critical in gaining respect and trust.

TTS Process Improvement Specialist Bryan Wallace knows the importance of cultural awareness firsthand. He recently returned from Africa, namely Gabon and Cameroon, where he worked with Africa Partnership Station, a program that aims to improve Africa’s maritime security and safety. Wallace faced a language barrier head-on as he conducted training and exercises on small engine repair for the African military. His first piece of advice: “Convey what you mean. Analogies and comparisons get lost, as well as humor. Think about what you say before you say it.”

 Clarke and Wallace have a few key tips for successfully bridging the cultural gap:

1. Be flexible and adaptive. It is crucial to be able to let go of cultural stereotypes.

2. Keep an open, receptive attitude. Those who exhibit good listening skills and a genuine eagerness to learn about others tend to be successful, even if they feel uncomfortable or shocked in an unfamiliar culture.

3. Be aware of the more underlying and personal characteristics of a culture. Often, people only think of culture in terms of art, food and drink, dress, rituals, etc. But some of the most important cultural perspectives are those which deal with time, communication, power, competitiveness, thinking, etc.

4. Research organizational structure. The hierarchy may be different from that to which you are accustomed. Be respectful and mindful of the rules and systems that are in place, Wallace says. Familiarize yourself with the chains of command.

5. Don’t hesitate to ask the locals for suggestions. Most people are proud of their culture and happy to share the best ways to experience it. When it comes to food, opt for local favorites instead of Americanized versions. Enjoy food the way the way the locals do.

Click here to search for information on business etiquette in specific countries or regions.

Click here to research all aspects of international business, education, law, logistics, and more.

Author: Kristen Burk, Editor

Part 2 in a series of posts on leadership and management

Chicken Little is alive and well. The sky is still falling, have you noticed? Chicken Little has effectively influenced newspaper editors and every single NPR reporter. Her tentacles of doom have stretched all the way to television, the Internet, and several parallel universes. Perhaps you have even received a text message from her mentioning the five reasons why America is falling apart.

Maybe the economy and all sorts of things are falling apart. Then again, maybe they’re not. Can you control these things? I can’t. But I can control my thoughts, my perspective, and my actions. So can you – if you choose to. So let’s shift gears and examine something that is truly important: sales skills and selling our goods and services during challenging economic times. The following are some of the sales skills, habits, and mind-sets that will help you thrive in a tough economy. That’s right, I said thrive.

1. Practice your craft. Many of us enjoy participating in sports. All of us love to win. In order to consistently win we must practice. Those tennis guys, Nadal and Federer, practice quite a bit. How often do you practice sales skills such as driving incredible sales conversations?  In the past month, how many times have you practiced the art of making appointments?  
2. Be authentic about your strengths. We improve by enhancing our strengths, not by focusing on our weaknesses. Know your strengths and the real ingredients of your winning formula. Not sure what they are? Ask ten people you highly respect to answer this question: In your opinion, what are three qualities or skills that make me successful? I guarantee that you will learn a few things about yourself.
3. Be realistic about what the market will give you right now. Think way back to the gold rush. At the height of it, the gold rush was giving gold. When the gold ran out, and people continued to pan for it, who made money? The people selling the pans because that is what the market was providing. As a side bar, think about the guys who were making it big during the gold rush. Two names stick out: Levi Strauss and Wells Fargo. Both provided products and services that were much less sexy than gold. However, Levi’s and Wells Fargo thrived, even as the gold rush crashed and burned. The point is this: make certain that you position yourself appropriately for current market conditions. 
4. Be confident. Often times, the difference between selling our wonderful wares or not, is tied to our level of confidence. If you allow yourself to get caught up in the prevalent sociology of a “shrinking economy,” you may very well freak out and not project yourself as the confident professional that you are. Remember that desperate people never get dates. Similarly, desperate professionals rarely get sales. You are good. So too are your products and services. Be confident and exhibit sales skills that help you sell your wares for what they are worth.  
5. Visualize success. Too frequently, people imagine the worst. This is a huge error because it sends a message of failure to your subconscious. Let me ask you a couple of questions (be honest now): Are you visualizing yourself being successful? Do you find yourself visualizing challenges, rather than what could be a happy ending? No matter what you answered, seek to create the following positive visualization habits:

• In the morning, take 10 minutes to picture yourself achieving success with every meeting, task, and activity you are going to engage in that day. While you do this, sit straight, close your eyes, and take deep, controlled breaths.
• Prior to each important sales appointment or phone call – close your eyes for one minute and picture a positive result. Put yourself in a positive frame of mind and then implement your vision. Be positive, be confident, have fun, get a decision.

Author: Doug Van Dyke, Strategic Partner

www.leadershipsimplified.com

Photo: Siemens.com

Why is heat rate important? 

Joel Malina of Competition: Watt Matters provides some answers to this question.

The NYISO released a statement indicating that competitive markets are responsible for increased power plant efficiency over the past 10 years: the system-wide heat rate for New York State fossil-fueled power plants has dropped by 21 percent since the onset of competitive electricity markets.

The bottom line: Competition is providing the incentive for producers to lower their operating costs by gaining efficiencies, and consumers are seeing a difference in their pocketbooks as rates come down.

If you operate, maintain or manage a power plant, having a good understanding of heat rate can save you a great deal of money.  A small 10 BTU/kWh change in heat rate can save your plant as much as $200,000 per year.  (In most power plants, this constitutes less than a 1 percent change in your total heat rate.)  Of course these numbers vary from plant to plant based on fuel costs, operating routine and capacity factor, but all types of power plants can benefit from a small change in heat rate.

Power plant personnel at all levels of experience need to have a strong understanding of efficiency and heat rate.  As discussed in the Energy Efficiency Matters blog, this includes operators tracking real-time performance, maintenance and I&C personnel ensuring data signals are accurate and engineers supporting periodic detailed evaluations and capital improvement projects. With these practices in place, a significant savings can be seen in a short period of time, and a return on investment for most projects can be gained in less than a year.

Author: Scott Lock, Process Improvement Specialist

Photo: Fieldstone Homes

This is the first in a series of posts on Leadership and Management

Staffing levels go up. Staffing levels go down. Seems like most staffing levels these days are shrinking a bit. And while many of you are striving to right that trend, most of you are clearly faced with doing more with, well, less. As such, it is as important as ever to develop team members so that more of their potential can be employed at work. The challenge is to juggle the myriad of tasks and responsibilities with which you are charged, along with elevating the skill levels of team members. To introduce this topic, allow me to share a best practice I find quite appropriate.

A colleague of mine meets with his operations and maintenance leaders on a quarterly basis. The first question he asks during the meeting is this: “If you are promoted or leave the company tomorrow, who will take your place and why?” He has a great team and usually receives salient responses. Occasionally however, he receives a skittish answer. His response is typically, “by next quarter I expect a solid plan, or unpleasant changes will occur.”

The above mentioned approach is not ruthless. Rather, what this best practice does is place a priority on growing the skills of our people. Better skilled people lead to better, more profitable results – it’s a fact. So let’s look at four areas we can embrace in order to ensure that our team members (and our profits) grow.       

Mindset – As Yogi Berra once said: “Baseball is 90 percent mental; the other half is physical.” The mindset that I encourage you to embrace is to recognize that developing team members is constant. Growing people is not a one-time or annual event. Informal development should occur each day, while formal development should occur at regular intervals. Begin by envisioning outstanding outcomes, and then create a plan to bring these outcomes to fruition.

Catch People Doing Something Right – In so many workplaces, leaders only notice the things that are wrong. Constructive feedback is the low hanging fruit of development. If only (or mainly) constructive feedback is given, the workplace can become slanted to the negative. Team members need reinforcement regarding what they are doing correctly – even if they are executing an expected part of their job. But remember to be very specific about what is correct, AND be sure to describe the positive impact that the team member’s behavior has on other team members. 

Ownership – counter-intuitively, it is the leader’s responsibility to drive team member development activities. While team members certainly have a huge stake in positive outcomes, the learning process should be driven and monitored by the leader. This ensures quality and on-target results.     

Partnership – informal and formal feedback can expand collaborative relationships. Feedback helps to solidify what team members have learned, and serves as a barometer for your effectiveness.  A method I’ve found particularly successful is to request a one-page summary after a formal coaching/development session with a team member. This summary will not only inform you about the team member’s key takeaways, but it will also test his or her level of engagement.

Developing your team members builds a healthy culture, creates positive connections, and increases retention rates for your top performers. There you have it. Now go forth and coach, develop, and quote Yogi!

Author: Doug Van Dyke, Strategic Partner

www.leadershipsimplified.com

There really is some truth to the old adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  Such a phrase seems naïve or misplaced in the context of preventive maintenance, but is it really?

 A great article by Drew Troyer of Noria Corporation discusses some of the issues that arise with preventive maintenance and how to avoid them.

  “Preventive maintenance is among the most common root causes leading to the need to perform corrective maintenance. It need not be. Evaluate your PMs and eliminate tasks that fail to add value or actually create failure. Eliminate the waste and ambiguity and properly assign the tasks at the proper interval, and avoid the temptation to knee-jerk react to failures by simply adding new PMs to the system or increasing the frequency with which tasks are executed without proper cause analysis. You’ll find yourself spending less money on preventive maintenance and, at the same time, increase the reliability of your manufacturing systems.”

 The steps to build a PM procedure have been described in many books, corporate policies, etc.  The process is typically data driven and mechanical to determine PM frequency.  However, the “art” is to consider the following three aspects of preventive maintenance:

1. Human Factors – Anyone who has performed routine maintenance on different models of cars can relate to this issue easily. On some cars, it may be simply a matter of lifting the hood or opening the glove box to access a fuse box. On other cars, accessing the fuse box might be equivalent to the twelve labors of Hercules. The harder it is to reach, the more likely something else will break accidently. The same issue applies to plant equipment.  Different motors, pumps, etc., may have the same basic PMs that need to be performed, but have varying degrees of access and ease of maintenance.  The “art” is to evaluate the likelihood of accidental damage to something else during the process of performing a PM based on physical location and workforce skill.
2. Domino Effect – As noted in the linked article, equipment failure probability generally increases immediately following preventive maintenance. So what happens after such a failure? Add another PM of course!  The best response to such a failure is to go back and evaluate why it happened and rethink the frequency of the original PM procedure. The right course of action might be to reduce the frequency of the PM, not to add another PM.
3. Collateral Damage – Wear and tear on components removed or accessed during preventive maintenance is a certainty.  An often overlooked aspect of PM program design is the interaction and impact of multiple PMs as it applies to wear and tear. Certainly maintenance planning involves scheduling of related PMs for labor efficiency and to minimize downtime of equipment. However, another factor to consider is the impact of the inevitable worn threads, sheared bolts, broken latches, etc.   The impact of such anticipated failures over time needs to factored into the frequency of PMs and should be planned for.

The bottom line is to temper the science of PM design with the art of considering the very real (yet hard to quantify) three aspects noted above.

Author: David Brent, Vice President

Most people take the safe operation of power plants for granted. Inside them are major components — including vessels, valves and piping — that operate under extreme pressure for years at a time. Yet the plant and others like it around the world run reliably and raise no alarm.

It’s probable that not one person knows just how many pressure vessels and miles of pipeline are currently in use. Every day they give us the electricity, fuel and steam that light and shape the modern world. But news photos from Manhattan in July 2007 show a gaping hole in Lexington Avenue which reminds us of what can happen when a steam pipe fails under pressure.

A steam pipe explosion beneath a street near Grand Central Terminal propelled a giant scalding jet of brownish steam toward the sky, sending commuters stampeding to safety. Officials said that one person died and more than 30 were hurt. Photo: New York Times

A steam pipe installed in 1924 ruptured in a thunderous explosion, sending steam, water and debris shooting outward through Midtown Manhattan. The authorities ruled out any criminal activity, saying the explosion was apparently caused by a failure of antiquated infrastructure. Photo: New York Times

The management of many power plants and their counterparts in the petroleum industry have methods for keeping operations safe and reliable. They know the risks posed by different parts of their work sites — the likelihood and consequences of failure of every major piece of equipment. They keep a close eye on the big-risk areas and react to early signs of impending failure.

The practice is called risk-based inspection. It lets companies weigh the risks posed by their equipment so they know how often they should inspect each key component and how to deal with the unexpected. It makes more effective use of resources and usually requires fewer shutdowns. Plants operate safely and companies save money.

The practice of risk-based inspection is less common outside petroleum and power generation businesses. That is the reason for a new American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) standard, which is designed to introduce risk-based inspection practices and planning to a wider range of industries.

In the normal course of events, inspectors responsible for the safety and reliability of plants have a seemingly endless list of hazard areas to review, and all of these areas are given equal weight. Large parts of a plant or refinery are shut down so that the inspectors can do their jobs. Product flow and services diminish, and the company loses large amounts of capital.

The new ASME standard, PCC-3-2007 Inspection Planning Using Risk-Based Methods, was specifically developed for planning and executing risk-based inspection of fixed pressure-containing equipment and components. Equipment covered ranges from piping and boilers to pumps and compressors, from heat exchangers and furnaces to storage tanks and valves. Risk-based inspection planning takes the concepts of RBI and applies them to such issues as frequency of inspection.

Author: Phillip Smeall, Process Improvement Specialist