What are the biggest mistakes plant operators make that lead to failure?

For instance, consider a manufacturing facility where operators haven't received adequate training on how to perform their jobs or conduct routine maintenance checks on critical machinery. Without this knowledge, minor issues may go unnoticed, leading to unexpected breakdowns and production delays. Moreover, improperly trained staff might not adhere to quality or safety protocols, increasing the risk of quality defects, accidents, and injuries. In the long run, these shortcomings can result in productivity lost, increased maintenance costs, and damage to the company's reputation. Therefore, investing in training programs is essential for ensuring operational excellence and reliability, safeguarding the workforce and the business reputation.

Lack of proper training is a major drawback in any industry. People are given training on outdated systems and are supposed to work on an updated system. This leads to a time lag in understanding and acting in case of an emergency condition. This can lead to catastrophic failures as well as increase the extent of damage from a small malfunction many fold. To avoid any untoward incidents, operators should be trained on the system they are going to work by people who have actually worked on the system. Proper familiarisation to be provided to the operator for the system then only operation to be allowed. Building confidence is also necessary to ensure proper operation in power plants.

-Completing their plant checks sitting in the cabin/office. -lack of upgrade/education themselves with their plant/machine. -differentiate if a problem is mechanical/Electrical/Instrumentation

In my experience operator should tbe trained we’ll for handling emergencies and abnormalities in the plant like tripping of some critical pump, compressor surging, cooling water failure some sensors failure. Particularly DCS operator should be train vigorously in plant simulator and only those operator who are able to clear the test should be allowed to operate the DCS. Management should invest in proper technologies for technical training. DCS and field operators are the first line of Defence for any plant. They are the most important person in plant operations. Operators should have complete clarity about the process, their actions and results arising out of it.

In my experience, one of the biggest mistakes plant operators that lead to failure is the lack of effective communication with the maintenance team. In my previous work, the operations and maintenance are separate departments and lack of communication between the two especially if they are not in good terms proves disastrous to the whole plant operations.

Proper communication is one of the most important factors in ensuring the proper running of a power plant. The equipment nomenclatures should be denoted by a word instead of an alphabet as background noise or lag in the communication network can distort the communication. Plant operators should have a common nomenclature system for a set of equipment and it should not be changed and the same should be incorporated in the SOP's.

Poor communication, inadequate planning, and ineffective scheduling. Without clear communication channels, teams struggle to align goals and tasks, leading to disruptions in workflow and decreased productivity. Additionally, the absence of robust planning and scheduling processes results in inefficiencies, missed deadlines, and increased downtime, hindering the overall effectiveness of the operation. Prioritizing improved communication strategies and implementing thorough planning and scheduling methodologies, organizations can streamline operations, optimize resource utilization, and ultimately drive better performance.

Good communication is like a culture in society, it takes time and dedicated efforts to develop. Middle management should interact frequently with operators and always discuss on going situations with them, so everyone is on same level. More interactions means more passing and circulation of information.

In a lot of mine processing plants I have had the pleasure of leading, optimizing plant uptime unlocks 20% or more of plant output. In the short term, deferring preventative maintenance may buy the operator some run time, but they pay for it later, 10 times more. My dad always says, a stich in time saves 9. He could not have been more correct, especially for mine sites that are located in remote areas. In addition to preventative maintenance, predictive maintenance of plant critical assets that have no redundancy is essential! This entails installing vibration and heat sensing technologies, and tracking and trending key plant measurable attributes such as flow and pressure, to proactively detect sub optimal conditions, for intervention.

One thing I've observed is organizations often neglect maintenance for immediate production gains, which is short-sighted. Prioritizing output numbers can lead to costly breakdowns and downtime. I disagree with temporary fixes as a solution; they mask underlying issues, escalating problems. For instance, a manufacturing plant prioritizing production over maintenance saw frequent equipment failures, causing extended downtime and revenue losses. Neglecting maintenance's can cost outweighs short-term gains.

Neglecting maintenance in a continuously running power plant is a big no. The failure of small equipment can take out the whole plant if the standby is not well maintained and running equipment fails. So the plant operators as well as maintenance personnel should be monitoring the equipment on a daily basis and report any deviations or change in the sound or vibration levels along with regular monitoring by the MTP team. Only a well maintained plant is a reliable plant. Without reliability the overall plant life will reduce and it should be avoided at all costs.

Safety is to be kept as foremost while operation of any big equipment or power plant as a whole. Just the weight of any equipment is a hazard if not correctly secured. So safety has to be the main priority and operators have to be made to understand that a safe working environment will only ensure the safety of the operators. Ignoring system SOP's and safety procedures should not be tolerated in any case. If people are allowed to break the rules they will and if they are made to understand they cannot, all will follow the rules and system set in place.

Change is the only constant. Changes will occur in any plant as there are regulatory requirements as well as internal system improvement initiatives that keep on improving the plant process efficiency by updation of equipment. Resistance to such improvements is not good for progress. Upgradation always makes the work easier for the operators as many innovations have been incorporated in the new equipment or system. It will take a little time to get familiarised with the system and it's always worth the effort.

Resistance to change is a common issue in process plants and most workplaces alike, and overcoming it is crucial for the successful implementation of business strategies. Strategies to overcome this challenge include clear communication, employee involvement, comprehensive training, highlighting positive outcomes of new decisions, addressing concerns of staff, leadership support, celebrating small wins, establishing feedback loops, fostering a culture of continuous improvement in employee welfare, and career growth progression.

None of these items are problems of hourly plant operations persons. They are all problems of leadership. Supervisors, managers, directors and executives set direction and guidance and provide the assets needed to carry out direction and guidance. If there are discrepancies in the performance of hourly persons, it is the leader that is accountable.

I agree with you Tom. Failures at the plant floor are failures of the leaders. Your teams are only as good as your leaders. The failure is in organization’s not developing their leaders. This is driven by the fact that organizations don’t know what leadership is and how to achieve it. There is not shortcut or fast way to develop leaders. This is why falling for leadership training and confusing it as development is killing organizations. Leadership is a journeyman level skill that can only be mentored by a journeyman level skilled leader. Leadership can be benchmarked and measured but the majority of consultants don’t know what they are talking about and can’t truly make a difference so they don’t want you to measure their failure.

Leadership sets the expectations which are tied to the vision and then empowers their team to achieve them! Train, coach, encourage, recognize. Help each to see that they are valued & valuable!

It takes a team to run a plant successfully, not an individual. The team needs to support each other, train each other so there is no weak links in the chain and everyone can brings value to plant production.

Well I have small journey with power plant experience, but in half decade of working with power plant, if we deliver service to our client, and training, this will lead major problems. For example, contractor wants to reduce cost during service providing, so in this case they take both work from operator as operator and trainer, both need time and energy. For this some time we skip field inspection due to training and review other systems to client. In mean time if any problem comes and operator not aware of the issue in time, this will lead to big incident.