DuraBante

Outage Management – Safety Success



Continuous improvement is critical to the Power Generation Industry, especially Fossil Power Plants. By focusing on the work process to improve productivity firms, can extract great value both in cost savings and revenue generation. Cost of outages can be trimmed by reducing man-hours and overtime associated with work stoppages and contract labor working over top of each other. Revenue can be enhanced by bringing the plants back on line early so more generation than planned can be sold, rework can be eliminated during start up and opportunity costs from forced outages can be eliminated.

One of the cornerstones to achieve these results is by executing a well run integrated safety plan.

Industrial safety, human performance, and quality work are the most important activities in the management of outages. Integrating the safety team into the planning for outages at least 12 months in advance of the start of an outage will ensure that employees are well trained and procedures, policies, programs are well understood. This must be done with internal employees as well as with external contractors so that accidents are eliminated and work productivity is not slowed down. This is critical to ensuring smooth budget and scheduling success without wasting economic resources.


Partnering with contractors early in the planning process and “laying down the law” will ensure that everyone is on board with the scheduling and safety philosophy so that needless work stoppages are eliminated and employees feel empowered to work safely and efficiently.


Look for contractors that embrace web-based technology to optimize outage performance and environmental safety and health tools that track and manage real time work. These tools save a lot of downtime.