This news article was originally written in Spanish. It has been automatically translated for your convenience. Reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate translation, however, no automated translation is perfect nor is it intended to replace a human translator. The original article in Spanish can be viewed at Relevancia del mantenimiento en la industria química

Maintenance is a critical activity for profitability, especially in the long term

Relevance of the maintenance in the chemical industry

Maria Escribano01/12/2005

The Spanish Association of maintenance (AEM), organized on the occasion of Expoquimia, a Conference on peacekeeping in the chemical industry, where prominent personalities of the sector presented and discussed the most important aspects and most significant of the matter: the impact on costs, company policies, use of outsourcing and its control, the maintenance and security, the lack of University studies, etc.

The modern facilities of the chemical industry become more complex, working in severe conditions, have grown to a degree of automation and control and require significant investments. On the other hand, the social and legal framework in which to operate its activity is very demanding. The existing regulations in the field of security and respect for the environment require a careful and precise operation. It also affects the required demand for all standards of quality of products.

The President of Dow Chemical insisted the error that is seeing the maintenance as a cost

This is derived from the need for more precise and more careful, maintenance action to ensure an optimal state of facilities and service life until their obsolescence. And why the cost of maintenance is a very considerable part of the operating costs of these plants, as well as the profits that, in many cases, the low occupancy and efficiency that manages to get them.

Despite the importance of the maintenance on costs, the availability of facilities and safety, in general, no attention is paid the that you should. Studies of "bench-marking" known on the continuation in the chemical industry show a wide disparity of criteria on its management, its organization, its recourse to outsourcing and on its results.

And these differences in costs and results can be decisive in industries where margins tend to have a great volatility, going through cycles that produce highly critical results.

On the occasion of Expoquimia, the Spanish Association of maintenance organised a Conference on peacekeeping in the chemical industry, where prominent personalities of the sector presented and discussed the most important aspects and most significant of the matter: the impact on costs, company policies, use of outsourcing and its control, the maintenance and security, the lack of University studies, etc.

Maintenance, strategic advantage

The day was started by Antonio Valero, President of Dow Chemical. Valero, after briefly introduce your company, stressed the importance of keeping because, he said, "we design not ideally, not build ideally, do not operate ideally, industrial processes are not ideal and, Furthermore, there are legal requirements that must be met". The President of Dow Chemical insisted the error that means seeing the maintenance as a cost, and so I asemejo to a health insurance.

"In the end, the outcome of plants depends on the performance of maintenance, and need a way of working that involves the maintenance from the conception of the plant until its decommissioning," he noted. For this reason, it is necessary to consider the maintenance as a strategic advantage, that is, according to Valero, the premise that follows your company, then explaining how manages the maintenance in Dow

Accidents or incidents occur always well because they fail the things, people or machines

The recruitment of the maintenance

Following this intervention, it was his turn to Antonio Lorente, director of manufacturing of Petresa, of the Group Cepsa who spoke the contracting of maintenance in the chemical industry.

Lorente explained the differences that exist between own and contracted maintenance, the advantages and disadvantages with both options. So for example, if one considers the quality of the own maintenance, the advantages are many: control and training, if necessary, the easier, the motivation to work is higher, there is an easier to address improvements on the flythe particular knowledge of the machine is higher and the quality does not conflict with the time; Although there are also disadvantages: the training of specialists is expensive and in little repetitive work practice is less.

Otherwise, if it is contracted the maintenance we will have a better chance of training in cutting-edge technologies and more practice in little repetitive work; Although, as drawbacks we will have a lower motivation, training hard contrasted a priori, the particular knowledge of the machine is worse, and in addition, the contracted maintenance is limited by the supply of time/cost.

The director of manufacturing of Petresa had an impact on other aspects to take into account when deciding on an own maintenance or contracted, such as availability, cost, then focus on the types of maintenance that can be contracted– preventive or predictive, corrective, daily routines, major repairs, maintenance scheduled stops and improvements in plant; and how to retain, that is, the types of contract (price, price closed with a variable component - can set a maximum limit, price unit, administration...).

The maintenance and security

Servando Vazquez, director of Union Española of explosives factories was commissioned to present a paper devoted to the maintenance and security. Vázquez began his speech by ensuring that accidents or incidents occur always well because they fail the things (design is incorrect, construction is incorrect, a piece is defective, is used or is maintained incorrectly...), well because fail systems (man-machine)(, motivation...), either because fail people (operators, supervisors, managers...). But to solve all these problems, the director of Union Española of explosives factories stated that they exist in the market tools for the control of these incidents, maintenance management programs, well known in the market and increasingly more employed.

Impact on outcomes

Finally, Caesar Gallo, director of Repsol YPF refinery was commissioned to explain one of the most current issues in the maintenance, the incidence of the maintenance on the results of the company. In this regard, said that "the maintenance is a critical activity for profitability, especially in the long term," affecting both the duration of the lifetime of installations and the quality of the processes and the standards of safety and environmental compliance.

For César Gallo, the primary objective of the maintenance is to get the production facilities to achieve the necessary degree of availability to the planned production plans. In units with high levels of use is where the maintenance must invest in resources to correspond to them with high levels of availability. Units with low levels of use get adequate levels of availability so would require a lower investment of resources as necessary lower levels of availability and because there are more possibilities to perform maintenance on opportunity without affecting the availability of the plant.

The Rapporteur stressed that the development of its maintenance activity generates costs, both direct and by the unavailability of the schema of production, of great weight in the global production, "that is why a second core objective of the performance of maintenance is optimizing the balance between the availability that produces and the costs it generates."

For this reason, the improvement in the management of the maintenance affects directly and significantly in the business income; given that the maintenance Act by reducing costs and increasing gross margin.

But, concluded the director of Repsol YPF refinery, putting into practice a policy of effective maintenance is vital to have the support of senior management; and in doing so, you need to know convey the impact of maintenance on the results of the company.

Presentation of the book survey "Maintenance in Spain"

On 29 November took place in Barcelona the Act of official presentation of the book survey "Maintenance in Spain", edition of 2005, as well as the first issue of the new collection "Notebooks AEM of maintenance", with the title "maintenance on line and maintain reliability"It has been prepared by the Working Group of the same name of the Committee of maintenance in the Energy Sector of AEM. This presentation took place at the end of the afternoon session of the documentación Conference on peacekeeping in the Energy Sector held in the same location.

The 4th edition of the survey book is already a reference in the area of peacekeeping, not only in Spain but in other European, and Latin American countries and on the other hand, we must highlight the beginning of a stage in the edition of the AEM notebooks of maintenance.