PlantSuccess 2008 Calgary
Highlights Alberta's Leading Role in O&M Technologies

Comments by William G. Beazley, President, Information Assets, Inc., Houston

PlantSuccess conferences are widely known for the visionary selection of topics and speakers concentrating on issues that affect operational excellence, plant operations and maintenance. The program for PlantSuccess 2008 Canada, September 18th at Calgary's Hotel Arts, was no exception. Because of a unique convergence of circumstances, Canada's Alberta Province is among the biggest users of new approaches to acquiring equipment, data and skills for operational benefit.

Tailored to the interests of the regions served, the recent event focused on the Canadian Oil Sands and the dramatic innovations they drive. Alberta's oil sands contain about 145 billion barrels of bitumen, making this province second only to Saudi Arabia in proven oil reserves. This stature and the current high demand for energy is driving investment commitments of CAD 184 billion by 2020 from international giants and local operators, reports keynoter Gerald Bruce, Manager, Upgrading, MEG Energy.

The huge capital expansion in Alberta means that advanced technologies are readily applied to the many, new "greenfield" designs. Suncor Energy, one of the earliest producers of Alberta oil and gas, is a major builder of new facilities and pioneering the acquisition of plant data to operate new and existing facilities. "Data about the assets is essential to operational excellence," notes keynoter Paul Crowley, P.Eng, Director of Engineering, Suncor Major Projects. "My job is making sure we have the data needed to run these plants efficiently."

Suncor calls this body of information the "data plant." To acquire this data, Suncor develops data plans (standard data models, templates and processes) to make sure the data is properly captured and translated into their systems. Once delivered, this data support visualization, simulation and financial management. "We budget for data capture and start years in advance to plan and manage its delivery," says Crowley. Suncor's data plant strategy has shown great value. After a major fire, a plant was restored in 9 months using 3-D product data readily available for the plant. Getting the plant back on line so quickly "generated a Billion Dollar return" estimates Crowley.

When discussing Aligning People and Technology with Organizational Goals, Tim Joshi, Founder, Synovia Inc, noted: "Industry isn't buying technology, they’re buying performance improvement." The first step in any IT project is to make the business aware, then develop shared business objectives. This permits the project to be re-tuned to meet objectives as challenges arise; numerous examples were offered by Diana Peters and Kevin Brown.

Notable technologies for O&M performance improvement from PlantSuccess Solution Partners include:

• Siemens' XHQ Operations Intelligence Solutions allows real-time operational data display
• Pavilion Technologies, a Rockwell Company, models process performance using patented simulations to improve portfolio profitability and optimize set-points
• Meridium, Inc. offers tools to monitor asset performance
• AVEVA Inc. is a proven plant design and technical data management tool
• Actenum Corporation improves resource allocation through advance planning and scheduling of operations and maintenance to customized performance metrics

Application solution providers are reducing implementation risks through customer collaboration, adherence to consensus standards and easy re-configuration.

A common issue among process manufacturers is Knowledge Management (KM). Acknowledging the shortage of good people is easy; demographics and employee mobility means that every day, valuable corporate memory is walking out the door. Carol Arnold, Knowledge Management Leader, DuPont Engineering, said that they are focusing on "key engineering leaders" from their staff of 900. "We schedule interviews to capture as much as possible and conduct 'Milestone Interviews' because of significant professional events," said Arnold. DuPont has collected over 500 searchable documents recording corporate knowledge; profiling employee knowledge and making these knowledge assets available to the rest of DuPont is a key benefit.

Ten years ago, Fluor made a commitment to KM for project development, management and execution. Dan Nerison, Fluor Knowledge Management Team, said, "We don't look at KM as a challenge…since one of our goals is to build employee careers." Corporate culture, where experienced professionals share with less experienced ones, is a key. Flour has 44 "Knowledge Communities," where knowledge is exchanged and answered questions are documented. "In the first eight months of 2008," said Nerison, "there have been over 1.6 million reads of KM documents." Because Knowledge is maintained through stewardship, it is updated and archived as needed.

Knowledge communities also are important to Fluor's new business developments. When a business area deserves ongoing attention, they create a knowledge community to pool and share knowledge about the business practices and other engineering information. Knowledge Communities are also used for training, surplus equipment, monthly finance closes, etc.

The value of people is a recurrent theme. Andy Day, Director of Western Operations, Marsulex Inc., said that "you need the right business model, the right services, the right management tools and the right people." Marsulex works hard to develop staff, compensate competitively and manage effectively.

People alone will not correct broken work processes. "Agrium is using root cause failure analysis to improve work processes," said Keith Berriman, Services Manager, Agrium Inc. The approach, termed "cause mapping" helps identify multiple root causes which can eliminated. "The approach forces you to ask questions about potential root causes that can be chosen for elimination," he said. Agrium used cause mapping to eliminate problems with their work order system, improving schedule compliance from 54 percent to 70 percent and reduced the backlog 30 percent. It also was applied to a CAD 90 million project to solve management problems; cause mapping is "easy to understand and easy to teach," said Berriman.

Is Human Capital Management (HCM) an iconic challenge for Canadian plant management? A special survey sponsored by PlantSuccess found the following HCM drivers of performance improvement:
1.     Innovation
2.     Hiring decisions
3.     Accountability
4.     Collaboration and Teamwork
5.     Job Design.
These drivers are certainly present in the issues discussed in the conference.

Discussion revealed the twin horns of the Oil Sands prosperity dilemma: The same prosperity that enables use of the latest technologies and techniques is the prosperity that's overloading management and staff in their rush to fulfill and profit. Human capital is in short supply and overextended, perhaps leading to fatigue, waste and dangerously sloppy business culture. Attendees were treated to a frank and honest discussion.