It’s that time of year again, the first cool front of the fall blows through, the leaves on plants begin to change color, but most importantly it’s the beginning of fall outage season. Many facilities across the South choose to hold their turnarounds or outages in the fall months and spring as the weather is generally more pleasant than that of the brutal heat associated with the summer months.

Depending on the industry that you’re talking about, turnarounds may also be called outages or shutdowns; however, they all generally refer to the same thing. Essentially, a turnaround is a scheduled event where the facility shuts down to perform maintenance, repairs, overhauls, upgrades, or other construction-related activities during a specified time. In some cases, this can be as little as a few days, in others, it may be over a year. Regardless of the time frame or industry, outages are an important part of production, reliability, and safety.

What’s different about turnarounds?

Turnarounds are a unique situation. Lots of planning, coordination, budgeting, time, and resources go into making a successful turnaround. Many factors must be taken into consideration when planning for a turnaround. For starters, the facility will have to accommodate the significant increase in personnel on site. With more personnel comes the increase in traffic, materials, equipment, waste, and scheduling of simultaneous tasks being performed in the same areas. Typically, workers are working longer hours, night shifts, and many consecutive shifts without days off in between. Often, the tasks being performed are non-routine and to make matters worse, the contractor workforce is likely not familiar with the facility’s worksite or practices.

The icing on the cake here is that turnarounds generally have very tight, critical scheduling and budget constraints. After all, the facility is shut down, the longer it remains this way, the longer this facility goes without production i.e., revenue. Add these factors together, and you get a recipe for accidents, injuries, or worse. According to the Chemical Safety Board (CSB), 37% of all accidents investigated occurred before, during, or immediately following non-routine work and maintenance resulting in 86 fatalities and 410 injuries.

Turnaround planning 

Planning is the most critical phase of any turnaround. Having a comprehensive turnaround safety plan in place is paramount for successful execution. While many components go into a successful plan, this article will mostly focus on the safety aspect of outage planning.

When should planning begin? Typically, a major project will begin planning two to five years in advance. Large projects may see 12-18 months of advance planning. Smaller projects should have no less than 6 months of advance planning prior to execution. Regardless of when you begin the planning process, know that it takes a team to plan an outage.

Who should be on the planning team? Your team will likely be comprised of many different subject matter experts; however, you should consider incorporating leadership and management, engineering, maintenance, operations, environmental health and safety, general contractor management, and finance and accounting personnel into your team. The point here is that it takes a team comprised of experts of different backgrounds and perspectives to make an effective safety plan.

The safety plan 

Once a planning team is assembled, it’s time to begin the process of developing a safety plan. Turnarounds are a unique situation that will require a unique plan for each project; however, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel here. Some processes and procedures used in the facility’s daily operations may be sufficient for use in outage situations, but some will not. For example, your facility’s severe weather shelter location may be more than adequate to accommodate 35 people; however, when that number is increased to 100, or even 1,000, it simply won’t work.

This is the type of thought process that must be applied when creating an outage-specific safety plan — “Are my current practices adequate to handle the increased demand? If not, what do we need to do so that it can?”

What elements should be included in the safety plan?

As you may have guessed, it would be very difficult to create a concise list of five elements that must be included in all safety plans. The items included will largely be based on the scope and duration of the project, number of personnel on site, and other needs that may be identified by the SMEs on the safety planning team. Below are five important items that you should consider starting with for your next outage safety plan.

1. Purpose/goals/ scope of work

Arguably, one of the most important items to include in a plan is the purpose of the outage and the expected outcome after the outage. Simply put, if you don’t communicate your goals and expectations, then how is anyone going to know what they’re aiming for? Some goals that you may consider might be “complete the outage with zero incidents, zero injuries, on time, and under budget.” What a dream, right? Wouldn’t we all like to end an outage that way? If you don’t outline your expectations and goals, don’t be surprised if you don’t achieve them. Set your goals, make them known and make it happen.

2. Roles/responsibilities/support

The roles and responsibilities of everyone involved in the outage must be clearly documented and communicated. For starters, it lets everyone know who has the ultimate authority and responsibility for the project. Second, it helps contractors identify who they need to get in contact with when they need support. Consider using the specific names and titles of who will be supporting which activities. Taking it a step further, consider creating an organizational chart to show the chain of command for the outage. This would be a great area to consider additional support personnel, such as third-party consultants, engineers, safety technicians, rescue teams, environmental specialists, industrial hygienists, etc. that may be needed to ensure a safe and successful project.

3. Training/orientation

Many facilities require contractors to complete a company and/or site-specific orientation prior to arrival. In some cases, facilities implement an on-site orientation prior to beginning work. As someone who has worked as a contractor at numerous facilities a year, I can attest to the fact that many people forget everything they learned in the site-specific orientation taken before arriving on site. Many times, these orientations are good for a one-year period. If a contractor has worked at 10 other facilities in that year, chances are they aren’t going to remember your site’s policies and requirements either. Strongly consider implementing an outage-specific orientation or site-specific orientation “refresher” before allowing contractors to go to work. This doesn’t need to be a full one-hour theatric production; however, it should hit the high points and the important information to know about the site and the outage and move on.

4. Incident management and emergency preparedness

No one wants an incident to occur during an outage. Unfortunately, despite having an adequate outage safety plan, accidents will occur from time to time. Determine what types of incidents will require reports, such as near misses, injuries, accidents, LOTO errors, etc. Additionally, determine who to contact or notify in the event of an incident and how that needs to be documented. Decide what incidents will require further investigation and who will be responsible for conducting those investigations. Finally, consider sharing or distributing incident information to everyone involved in the outage. Sharing the lessons learned can prevent incidents from occurring again in the future.

Despite the unit or plant being shut down, emergencies may still occur. Think about how turnaround operations may affect your current emergency response plan. Consider planning for the following types of events: fires, spills/releases, severe weather, medical emergencies, high angle/confined space rescue, suspended workers, active shooter/bomb threat, and most importantly, alien invasions. Proper communications must be set up and established for the outage. Ensure that PA and radio systems are functional and will provide adequate coverage to convey the message in the event of an emergency.

5. HSE administrative requirements 

There are an endless number of HSE-related items to consider when developing and implementing an outage safety plan. This item will be more of a list within a list — consider it bonus material!

• Barricades — Determine when barricades are required, what tasks require what type of barricade, and what signage shall be included with each type of barricade.
• Contractor qualifications — Determine what qualifications contractors must possess to perform work on site. Perhaps everyone on site will need OSHA 10, ensure that riggers have their rigger’s card, equipment operators are certified, confined space and fire watch workers are certified, etc.
• Confined space — Some turnarounds may have large numbers of confined space entries, ensure that your emergency response team can handle the increased demand, ensure that rescue plans are available for all entries, and consider bringing in additional resources when needed.
• Fall protection — One thing that often gets overlooked when performing work at heights is having a documented rescue plan. Many companies elect to document “self-rescue” as their plan of action; however, consider your action if that plan fails. If rescue teams are on site, ensure that they are aware of the work and prepared to perform a rescue if needed.
• Fatigue management — Turnaround workers are known for working long hours and consecutive shifts without days off, ensure that adequate time is built into the schedule to accommodate for fatigue management. Consider implementing a mandatory fatigue day every 7th or 14th day of the outage.
• Haz-com — With increased personnel on-site comes increased waste. Ensure that there is a proper means of storage and disposal of waste. Additionally, develop a plan of action for what chemicals will be allowed on site, how they will be stored, and what needs to occur in the event of a spill or release.
• Housekeeping — It’s no secret that a large number of accidents and injuries are attributed in some way to poor housekeeping. Outline and enforce the expectations of impeccable housekeeping early on and consider implementing a periodic “clean-up” or “refresh day” into your outage. This can be monthly, weekly, or even the last hour of every shift. Set time aside for housekeeping!
• Lockout/Tagout — This is an item that often gets overlooked. During an outage, the number of active LOTOs can quickly jump into the three-digit mark. Have a plan to accommodate everyone needing equipment locked out. Consider who will walk the LOTO down, who will hang it, who will verify it, who will manage the LOTO procedures, etc. Consider a central location for the lock boxes and possibly consider the use of satellite boxes for contract companies.
• Permitting process — Another item that is often overlooked is the permit-issuing process. When only a few permits need to be issued each day, it’s usually not an issue to have one permit writer. However, when several hundred contractors need permits, log jams can quickly form bringing outage progress to a screeching halt. Carefully consider who will issue the permits, how many individuals will be allowed to issue permits, and how long permits will be valid. Additionally, plan to have a central location for permit writers to stage as opposed to having it on the far side of the facility. The last thing anyone wants to do is walk across a facility to get a permit and walk back before beginning work.

Planning is the most critical phase of any turnaround. As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The best time to begin planning for your next turnaround is right now. So, assemble your team of experts, consider how the outage will impact your ability to perform tasks safely, create a plan to overcome those hurdles and get ready to execute. Remember, there’s a safe way, and a safer way!