Managing Shutdowns, Turnarounds and Outages

Why Attend

Shutdowns and turnarounds are the highest risk activities that we routinely perform in industry, but they are also an area of massive variability in approach and outcome.

Many companies do not have written methodologies and have not trained their staff in best practice for shutdown and turnaround management; despite the fact that many shutdowns and turnarounds typically lead to the highest peaks in safety incidents, downtime and fixed cost spend each year. There has also been a historic gap in meaningful guidance - there are very few books on shutdown and turnaround management. Unfortunately, too often companies see shutdowns and turnarounds as something to be survived.

If shutdowns and turnarounds are not properly planned, managed and controlled, companies run the risks of serious safety and budget penalties, costly scheduled delays and negative impact on customers. The industry is full of examples of poor shutdowns and turnarounds, which have injured people and damaged businesses. As a consequence, operators are starting to explore turnaround best practice and establish a more robust methodology.

Managing Shutdowns, Turnarounds and Outages is based on the Carcharodon “best of the best” Model of Excellence for shutdown management. This model has been created and refined by some of the world’s most experienced shutdown specialists, with all this experience condensed into a core methodology - our blueprint for success. It converts shutdowns from a high risk nuisance to a strategic opportunity and has been used on multiple sites around the world, and has been the basis of two books and is supplemented by a chronological guide to building a successful turnaround.

Course Methodology

This is an interactive course. There will be open question and answer sessions, regular group exercises and activities, videos, case studies and presentations on best practice and the fundamentals of shutdown and turnaround management. Participants will have the opportunity to share with the facilitator and other participants on what works well and not so well for them, as well as work on issues from their own organizations.

Course Objectives

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Position shutdowns and turnarounds as part of an overall strategy of improving business performance
• Build the best shutdown and turnaround team possible from the resources available
• Reduce the cost and downtime associated with shutdowns and turnarounds whilst simultaneously improving safety performance
• Understand the critical processes, skills and tools required to establish outstanding shutdown performance
• Use our best-in-class Model of Excellence to analyze their own performance, explain key principles to others and build a detailed methodology tailored to their own needs
• Maximize the benefits of planning and preparation through our proactive challenge planning process
• Build a turnaround from the ground up: From concept to execution and review

Target Audience

Turnaround managers, planners, schedulers, reliability engineers, maintenance managers, maintenance supervisors, project managers, project engineers, operations managers, shift managers, operations supervisors and people who are in training for these positions. This course is also designed for contractors who want to contribute to the shutdown performance of clients.​

Target Competencies

• Shutdown strategy development
• Shutdown and turnaround planning
• Shutdown management and cradle to grave control
• Shutdown and turnaround execution