Probably a Bad Day

I have a friend that was working a "turnaround" years ago. What's a turnaround? It's when a unit in a petrochemical facility is brought down for maintenance, or repair.

Turnarounds are expensive; very expensive. Beside the coordination, multiple units involved, and the loss of product, the enormous cost is almost mind boggling. The labor costs are extremely high, since the hours demanded are 7 day weeks, with 10 to 12 hour days. Sometimes, the cranes alone to remove components take weeks to assemble, and the hourly rates are 5 figure numbers. With all the additional equipment and materials involved, a few million dollars can disappear in a week.

My friend was working for one of the contractors at the end of the turnaround. At that point, all the pipes were back together, things were being checked, and the manways were buckled up. It was time to start the startup procedure, which required a head count before proceeding.

They were missing someone. Double checking revealed no error, so the large scale checking began. Hours were spent, but they still couldn't find the missing man. The next step required removing manways to see if the missing man was inside the unit. That's when what I consider a bad day became worse.

The missing man, since there are so many involved, figured out he could slip through a fence, go home, and spend the day doing what he wanted. He would slip back in before quitting time, and nobody was the wiser....until that evening. When he appeared, and the head count became accurate, it was obvious he was the "missing man".

The man was fired, which didn't really make much of a difference. For all practical purposes, he was useless, and the contractor found their supervision practices under the microscope. The plant manager would have to do a report, and I know that was not a pleasant thing to turn in.

So it was a bad day for all involved, but the unit was brought back on line. If it was like most of these units, the revenue paid for the turnaround in a short period of time.