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.
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.
The dreaded maintenance department – a cost center most upper level management personnel would like to see disappear. As a consultant in the manufacturing industry for the past 17 years, I am continually amazed at the lack of vision companies have when it comes to equipment maintenance and reliability. Consider that when an assembly line goes down due to an equipment malfunction, it can cost upwards of $10,000 per minute in lost production. If your maintenance staff is not capable of fixing the problem in a timely manner, the downtime revenue losses can be staggering.
With the availability of such classes as auto shop, wood shop and metal shop diminishing from our nation’s schools, the concept of working with our hands has become foreign to a large percent of the population. This is a big reason why the maintenance division has become the “mystery division.” The notion that maintenance personnel carry around big hammers and crowbars still pervades the mindset of upper management, but the reality is that the maintenance staff has to understand complex processes controlled by high-end electronics. If they are not fully trained, you can count on your unplanned downtime increasing.
Let’s compare your maintenance department to a hospital. If you were in a car accident and got rushed to the emergency room, you would expect the doctor to be prepared to do whatever it takes to save your life. You would also expect that the doctor had been trained in all the techniques necessary to perform the job safely and effectively. In a manufacturing facility, the maintenance personnel are the doctors. They have to be prepared to handle whatever emergency arises in a manner that is safe and efficient.
America’s skilled trades work force will be retiring in droves over the next five years. Are you prepared for such a dynamic shift? Do you have a program in place to ensure your company’s “doctors” are going to be replaced by workers with the same qualifications? If you’re not, the next time your line goes down and you see a maintenance person standing at the machine scratching his or her head, look at your watch and count the minutes. Then ask yourself: how much did that just cost me?
Author: Anthony Foskey, Chief Operating Officer
