Clear Lake, TX, USA - The Turnaround Industry Network Conference, held on June 13th and 15th in Clear Lake Texas focused attention on three areas:
- Gaining top management engagement and leadership
- Current and emerging best practices in turnaround management
- Integrating capital projects into turnaround processes
More than 70 Attendees representing 14-owner companies and 28 US and international sites participated in this year's conference. The event was hosted by Asset Performance Networks, LLC (APN) and was a mix of owner presentations, breakout sessions, and networking activities. Bobby Vichich, Turnaround Planning Supervisor, ExxonMobil Beaumont Chemical Plant chaired the conference. The program included the following topics:
Rich Guttchen, Team Leader Turnaround Best Practices ChevronTexaco, shared his experience in implementing a corporate wide turnaround process with special emphasis on what you can and cannot control.
Cindy Gross, Global Reliability Excellence Leader of Celanese Chemicals, used case studies to illustrate the importance in obtaining senior management involvement to drive improvement.
Kirk Blanchard, Valero St. Charles Refinery
Special guest speaker, Dean Edmundson, Market Manager Energy Sector with Primavera Systems and Kirk Blanchard, Turnaround Planning Superintendent, Valero St Charles Refinery, jointly presented a case study on how this refinery effectively integrated Primavera, SAP, and TrackSoftware to improve turnaround cost and schedule control.
Rick Karner, Operate/Maintain Team Lead, ConocoPhillips, will provide a presentation on the value of integrating the capital projects' process and the turnaround process to enable streamlined planning and flawless execution. Mr. Karner's presentation was followed by real-life case studies and discussions led by the Turnaround Manager and the Manager of Capital Projects, at the Flint Hills Resources Pine Bend Refinery, Brad Hase and Tom Church, respectively.
Dave Rieder, Chevron Texaco, Burnaby Refinery, reports back on turnaround execution control
Brett Schroeder, Managing Partner with APN, set the stage for the breakout sessions by reviewing recent industry performance for high complexity turnarounds and by providing a definition of what constitutes a "best practice."
This year's breakout sessions covered the challenge of instituting best practices at the corporate and plant level and emerging best practices in the following areas: Project Controls, Scope Definition and Readiness, Turnaround Execution, and Corporate Governance and Oversight. The conference also had a series of breakout sessions on integrating capital projects and turnaround processes.
George Debakey, Managing Partner at APN, reviewed recent changes and upgrades to APN's web-based portal, www.Turnaround-Network.com. Nearly 100 sites now have licenses to the portal.
George Debakey, Managing Partner, APN
The TINC steering committee will meet later this year to set the agenda for TINC 2006. Registration for the conference will start in early 2006.
| Alliance Refining |
Citgo |
| Bayer |
ExxonMobil |
| BP |
Flint Hills Resources |
| Celanese |
Hovensa |
| Caltex |
Hunt |
| ChevronTexaco |
Shell |
| ConcocoPhillips |
Valero |
Some of the almost 70 participants |
