Staff at many chemical plants spend most of their time "fighting fires" to keep units operational. Therefore, they can't give adequate attention to finding ways to prevent unexpected failures that can incur costly downtime and damage — and pose potential risks to personnel.
Such was the case at the Saudi International Petrochemical Co. (Sipchem) complex at Jubail, Saudi Arabia, where asset availability and uptime remained below targeted levels for relatively new plants. Management was frustrated with the difficulty in achieving the high level of performance needed to compete in world markets.