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Making a Maintenance Painting Program Work Harder��Cost
Less!
A client operating a petrochemical plant in the Gulf Coast area was
dissatisfied with their current maintenance painting program. They were
spending just under $1,000,000 per year in direct contractor costs but
were still suffering expensive steel loss and poor plant appearance.
We first performed a
Current Practice
Assessment to help site
management understand what problems they may have, their severity and how
to overcome them most effectively. We analyzed everything from how work
scopes are selected to the efficiencies of the contractor painting crew.
The results were interesting.
| Annual work scopes were a "wish list". One example was painting a
single pipeline in an elevated pipe rack that contained several dozen
pipes in similar or worse condition. Another example included painting a
group of tanks without painting the associated access stairs, platforms,
ladders, pumps and piping. The actions to paint the tanks actually
damaged these associated items, increasing the rate of corrosion, making
the cost to eventually paint these items many times what it should have
cost. |
| There was evidence of significant application deficiencies that were
dramatically reducing the lifecycle of the coating system. These
included problems with surface preparation, inadequate film thickness,
and occasionally using the wrong coating for the environment. This was
in spite of the fact that the client was paying for a full time NACE
certified coatings inspector provided by the contractor. |
| Overall contractor productivity was many times less efficient than
it should have been. This was a result of several factors; laborious
daily permitting procedures, poorly organized and supervised work crews,
inefficient work scopes, etc. |
Further analysis showed only about 2% of the plant was getting
painted each year with much of that being done with inadequate quality to
insure a normal life of 8-10 years for that environment. The
result?........Steel loss, poor appearance, and getting farther behind
each year with more money spent!
A Strategic
Coatings Assessment was
developed and implemented. The result?
| 12-18% of the plant gets painted each year. |
| Work scopes use strategic factors such as optimum condition level
and geographic bundling for improved cost efficiency. |
| Longer coatings life is assured. |
| Costs ($/ft2) fell to less than 1/10th of past
work. |
| Steel loss will be nearly eliminated. |
| Plant appearance is improving. |
However the best news was that after about six years of spending about
what they are currently spending, the plant will have to spend only about
2/3rds of current expenditures to maintain their gains! |
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