Scheduled plant shutdowns require a very detailed planning that starts at least two years in advance, although some tasks must be planned well ahead.

This is a significant fact due to loss of production, cost, safety issues, and management of unforeseen events that may affect the length of the scheduled shutdown.

Implementing a shutdown is labor-intensive. Depending on its scale, up to 3,000 people may be employed, normally in two 12-hour shifts. This does not mean that the number is equal between the morning and night shifts.

On June 3, ARPEL Refining Committee organized a virtual meeting in which ENAP specialists Sebastián Placencia, Felipe Mardones Hernández, and Isaías Allende discussed how they use software in refineries to organize and optimize the productive hours, analyzing different aspects such as the entrance of personnel, the distances from the worksite offices to the execution sites, means of transport to the worksites, canteens, etc.

According to the experts, planning these aspects correctly involves thousands of man-hours that can be gained or lost, which has a direct impact on costs and can also involve a deviation from the time that had been planned for the shutdown.

Link to webinar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV6MPwD1a_U&t=63s