Shutdown readiness in COVID19: Challenges and solutions

There’s no playbook for the new challenges and risks that COVID is bringing to Shutdowns across the world right now. 

When we enter a Shutdown, Turnaround, & Outage event we come at it with confidence because we put so much work into the readiness stage of the project.  

 

But with COVID turning the tables on what we can do we’re suddenly having to come up with new ways to solve new problems. 

 

Not all shutdown teams can be onsite and this is particularly difficult for remote sites when communication is no longer transparent simple. When management team is offsite this also slows things down and, as we know, when we lose momentum on work risk mitigation can start to fall through the cracks. 

 

Rules imposed by local government can mean long quarantine times and long rosters. A long quarantine time means team members are excluded from the workflow and maybe even feeling isolated as they wait for their time to get started on work. Long rosters are a big risk particularly for fatigue management.  

 

When we have a scattered work force with so many restrictions in place, the success of a project can depend on the ability for workers to be innovative in their approach to collaboration. Ask any seasoned Shutdown Superintendent and they will tell you that the better the teamwork in a shutdown, the more successful it will be every time. 

 

Another problem with isolated team members is lack of visibility on the work as a whole. We can’t easily determine what’s needed and where the risks are when we can’t see all the pieces in the same place. If our team isn’t working together we’re creating silos and this is a very fast way to have a very bad shutdown. 

 

It’s not all doom and gloom because we have some solutions for you! 

1- Make sure you’ve established a strong readiness process and that you’re making sure to adjust to conditions and update the process as things change. 

2- Make sure accountabilities and responsibilities are clearly defined and make sure the whole team completely understands their expectations at all times. 

3- Upgrade your systems to that you’re able to operate collaboratively even when you’re remote. Communication must be transparent and team members must all have a reliable internet connection. 

4- Be clear on your readiness KPIs and have them in a central place for everyone in the team to always have clarity on their stake in those KPIs 

5- Actions are clear, easy to see, easy to understand and easily managed by the whole team. Transparency and clarity again is important, here. 

6- An effective and strong leadership team will be best positioned to have access to all of the above in a single place to make sure they can have a clear understanding of the process, avoid micromanaging and drive success from a single vantage point. 

 

Of course, if you’re looking for a tool that can do everything we’ve got you covered. SMSi is a digital platform that provides visual management for all readiness, execution and post-shutdown management phases. 

 

It promotes clarity for management and team members with an innovative approach to task management and a dashboard that is intuitive to the needs of the user. 

 

Plus we have an amazing team of developers that are always ready to take action on user feedback so the system can evolve as conditions, demands and workplace expectations change around the world daily. 

 

Curious? Reach out to explore how SMSi can help your business today.