WITH THE RIGHT TOOLS, YOU’LL NOT ONLY SURVIVE YOUR PLANT OUTAGE BUT ENJOY A LESS COSTLY, MORE EFFICIENT OPERATION.

A plant outage can be a lot like hell. Maintenance costs are stressing your cash flow, your agenda is stretched, and production is flatlining. But with the right tools, you can survive your plant outage. And not only that, but you can save time and money while increasing the productivity of your the shutdown period. And, perhaps most importantly, you can sleep well knowing your plant will be more efficient after all the hard work. The following resources will get you started.

Traveling Nuker is a scheduling and hiring database where skilled building trade union members can easily find maintenance and system upgrade projects on nuclear plants throughout the states. Where workers used to have to piece together jobs for outages, shutdowns, and turnarounds through personal contacts and newspaper ads, all the information is now accessible from one place!  They’re currently offering a free test run, so sign your plant up and upload your manpower needs and outage schedule for to access more talent.

Fluor is an engineering, procurement, construction (EPC), maintenance, and project management company. They specialize in challenging capital projects and have expertise in managing plant turnarounds, shutdowns, and outages. It’s no news that minimizing downtime and maximizing the productivity of your shutdown is the ideal, right? A project management company like Fluor could help you with this, given their experience in power generation, oil refining, chemical processing, and other industrial fields. Check them out and see if they could help you streamline and simplify your outage.

Check out a project management system like ATC Professional, built uniquely for process industry turnarounds (oil refinery, petrochemical plants, fertilizer plants, pulp and paper mills, power plants, etc.). They know well that turnarounds aren’t just another big project. They require tremendous foresight, planning, and wise prioritization of maintenance tasks. ATC gets it, and their system could help you in building your budget and reporting structure beforehand and staying on schedule during execution.

Nuke Worker is an incredibly thorough site with job postings, advertisements, outage schedules, training, and much more. Their forum gets a lot of traffic, and they aggregate all the news in nuclear industries, so it’s an ideal place to sign your plant up and post jobs. Register your company, launch some ads, and upload your labor needs or outage schedule! If you’re feeling ambitious, you can even direct your local workforce to Nuke Workers site to prepare for and complete their training and certifications.

Much like Nuke Worker and Travelling Nuker, Roadtechs  is an excellent place to upload your outage schedule and labor needs. They cover everything from nuclear, petrochemical, fossil and alternative energy to shipyard and aerospace industries. An employer registration can get you a single job posting, a year’s worth, or a few month’s worth—whichever makes the most sense for your outage manpower needs!

“A turnaround that goes badly, lasts for too long, or exceeds its budget could result in the company unexpectedly reporting fiscal losses. On the other hand, a turnaround that goes well and stays within its budget and timeline will make a huge contribution to the plant’s efficiency and safety…setting the plant up for even bigger success in the future.”-STi GROUP

Consider utilizing companies like Contract Resources who provide specialized services focused on making your operation more efficient. They work within industrial fields: oil refineries, petrochemical plants, mineral processing, renewables and utilities—you know the gig. They offer a wide range of services—everything from catalyst and mechanical, tank and mechanical, heat exchanger to hydro-jetting and cold cutting, pipeline services, and (you guessed it) shutdowns and turnarounds. Their project planning and estimating support can free up the leeway for you to focus on the more important decisions and pieces, rather than getting bogged down in project execution. And they promise a strong focus on the safety of the workforce—always a good thing!

“A nuclear plant outage is huge, complex undertaking involving thousands of activities typically over the course of three to four weeks. “-G. Weatherby

If possible, take the time to deep dive into the literature out there around making your turnaround less costly, more productive, and with less downtime. Emerson’s 6-step process, IAEA’s Management Strategies for Nuclear Power Plant Outages and IDC Technology’s Practical Shutdown and Turnaround Management for Engineers and Managers are just a handful of the resources out there. But there is a wealth of knowledge, experience, and advice out there from industry veterans like yourself who’ve been through the ringer when it comes to managing an outage. So set some time aside, pick your poison, and prepare thyself for a smoother, less stressful outage, turnaround or shutdown!

“The engineering world is littered with examples of poor shutdowns with massive overruns in costs and problems in resource planning. Performing an effective shutdown is an example of applying many of the principles of good project management with some important exceptions…”-IDC Technologies

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