At a Glance
- A leading international supplier of aviation fuel products and services engaged Renoir to analyse and improve its maintenance practices in order to increase the efficiency, productivity, and reliability of its overall operations.
- After analysing its maintenance practices, Renoir identified several key issues, including the lack of a frozen maintenance schedule and poor quality of notifications, among others.
- To maximise the organisation’s operational efficiency and productivity while minimising costs and downtime, Renoir implemented a robust work management process with several key pillars.
Key results
Reduced maintenance backlog by
28%
Implemented maintenance dashboards to increase transparency and visibility of key metrics
Established a KPI-driven meeting structure for fact-based decision-making
Improved the quality of work notifications and orders
Background
Our client is a leading international supplier of aviation fuel products and services. They are renowned in their home country for pioneering the first industrial co-processing facility to produce sustainable aviation fuel from waste materials and residues.
At the time of this project with Renoir, the facility directly employs a workforce of approximately 750 highly skilled personnel, with an additional 2,000 indirect jobs supported in the operating region.
The Challenge
As a leading energy production site, our client continues to drive innovation and progress in the industry and is a testament to the region’s rich energy legacy. To further improve the efficiency, productivity, and reliability of its operations, the company engaged Renoir to analyse and improve its maintenance practices, leading to overall improvement in its workforce effectiveness.
Analysis
The client commissioned Renoir to analyse their existing maintenance practices. We identified the following issues that hindered the efficient execution of work orders:
- Poor quality of notifications: This leads to incomplete work order information, excessive workload, and poor wrench time for workers.
- Lack of a frozen maintenance schedule: This leads to challenges in preparing work packages and carrying out work efficiently.
- Limited supervision profile: This leads to inadequate data availability, preventing the organisation from fully identifying and mitigating risks, and the inability to learn from past experience.
- Missing elements in an existing structure: Although there is an existing structure for managing employees and contractors, it lacks key elements such as planned and actual manhours, clear targets, active supervision, and effective action-driven meetings.
Addressing these issues was critical to improving maintenance practices and maximising the effectiveness of the workforce. By implementing changes to address these issues, such as improving the notification quality, establishing a frozen maintenance schedule, and collecting more detailed data on work carried out, the company will be able to increase efficiency and productivity while reducing costs and improving safety.
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Project Approach
The successful implementation of a new scheduling, execution, and closure process for the company’s refinery was a critical initiative. A pilot phase was conducted within the refinery to allow for rigorous testing and identification of any potential challenges prior to a full roll-out.
During this phase, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) were established along with defined meeting structures. This facilitated continuous monitoring of progress and kept the project on track. In addition, a management control system was implemented to optimise process efficiency.
A supervision concept was developed and implemented to ensure adherence to the highest quality standards and timely completion of work. This 15-month exercise was a significant undertaking for the company, but the results were well worth the investment.
The implementation was successful, and the company has seen significant improvements in scheduling, execution, and closure, leading to increased efficiency and productivity in maintenance operations.
Implementation
Effective work management is critical for maximising operational efficiency, productivity, and cost control while minimising downtime. To achieve these goals, we have implemented a robust work management process with several key pillars:
- Data-driven maintenance: We have established a framework of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) tailored to our maintenance activities and defined appropriate maintenance levels at the workshop level. This approach allows for continuous performance monitoring against these metrics, identify areas for improvement, and refine the maintenance practices over time.
- Improved supervision: A dedicated supervision team now provides daily oversight of the execution of work. This ensures that the highest standards of safety and quality are maintained, that any issues are identified and resolved in a timely manner, and that opportunities for further improvement are identified.
- Streamlined communication and decision-making: A meeting structure has been implemented to facilitate the efficient flow of information and expedite decision-making. This structure ensures that stakeholders at all levels, from senior management to frontline staff, are informed and involved.
- Performance monitoring and improvement: To measure deviations and identify opportunities for continuous improvement, we use a frozen schedule as a benchmark. This allows the tracking of actual hours worked against planned hours and identification of any delays or deviations. Corrective action can be taken to ensure timely and cost-effective project completion.
- Dashboards for insight: We have developed multiple dashboards that provide real-time insight into critical performance indicators, such as work order fulfilment rates, asset availability, and workforce efficiency. These dashboards enable staff to identify trends, make data-driven decisions, and proactively suggest improvements to the maintenance processes.
“We have successfully converted the COMET upstream work management process into a refinery work management process, which has become an organisation-wide standard.
We identified and activated SAP requirements for other sites to accommodate the new work management process. Our team created a blueprint for a supervision and a short internal concept that other sites can use.
We developed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to monitor the vitality of the work management process and steer the work in workshops.”
– Transformation and Modernisation Manager
Results
The company’s work management process has been redesigned to maximise efficiency, productivity, and reliability while minimising downtime and costs. By incorporating key elements such as maintenance Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), daily supervision, meeting structures, frozen schedules and dashboards, the refinery is continuously improving maintenance practices and positioning itself as an industry leader.
*We have intentionally omitted client-specific details to maintain strict confidentiality.  
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