Page 11 - Improving Machinery Reliability

Most of today’s process plants proudly display a Company Vision
statement. Sadly, relatively few pursue the kinds of action needed to
reach their often lofty visions. Conversely, it should be clear to us that a
serious company will take steps today to identify and implement the sci-
ence and technology “investments” necessary for modern petrochemical
plants to remain competitive into the next decade and beyond.

Based on my observation or perception of trends among the trendset-
ters and the forward thinking of the “Best-of-Class” companies, I would
like to alert the reader to a few of the work processes, organizational
realities, lineups or interfaces, as well as hardware and software systems
that have been implemented by the most profitable process plants in my
career, dating from the 1960s to the present.
I will summarize by giving a few important explanations. First, none
of the items I highlighted in this third edition were concocted for the
sake of compiling a wish list of far-fetched goals. Every one of the vari-
ous observations and recommendations either reflects current practice or
has been implemented by one or more plants in the United States or
overseas.
Second, no single plant presently applies or implements all the recom-
mendations or practices given here. It is nevertheless of real importance
to acknowledge that some companies come surprisingly close to practic-
ing these reliability concepts or will soon implement them. The future
belongs to them.
Third, it may not be realistic to expect every company to have the
same priorities for implementing what is perceived to be the ideal path
toward high reliability and profitability. However, it would be equally
unrealistic to assume that a company can pick and choose from a smor-
gasbord of easy items and forget about the politically difficult ones. Mea-
suring up to tough competition will require an uncompromising and sin-
gle-minded desire to pursue excellence. Paying lip service to reliability
and profitability concepts without implementing the difficult and some-
times unpopular steps necessary to get there is a costly exercise in futility
and is doomed to failure.

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