Thomas Industrial Library

Pitfalls in leadership (partially adapted from Managing Projects by John Reddish to suit shutdowns). These pitfalls occur when you, the leader:

• Try to do everything yourself

• Keep up a running battle with your team

• Keep up a running battle with your boss

• Keep up a running battle with operations (or your customer)

• Keep up a running battle with the contractor

• Keep busy with details

• Fail to attend shutdown meetings

• Fail to visit the field

• Fail to maintain the schedule and budget updates

• Have really long meetings and go over things over and over again

• Do not follow-up on decisions and promises from the last meeting

• Avoid make decisions

• Ignore ideas and feelings of others

• Keep information to yourself

• Share too much detail

• Emphasize production, not people

• Take credit for the good work of the team

• Surprise your customer with your results

Problems are common with shutdowns. The seeds of these problems can sometimes be seen in the planning stage if you are looking for them. In the same way that an acorn is very different from an oak tree, the seed of the problem might be very different of how it will turn out. These problems are not visible during the planning phase as problems unless you are looking for the seeds and you are alert.

Seeds are sown, and if the problems grow they will show up during execution

• Not keeping the plan up-to-date, or starting with a poorly defined shutdown causes the shutdown plan to be seen as just a chart on the wall, not a living, breathing, structure. The “chart on the wall” attitude results in people going through the motions of management (because they have a lack of buyin to the plan). Of course people don’t manage their areas if they have:

• Inability to stop scope creep. Did you ever try to satisfy kids by giving in and getting them what they’ve been whining about? This response has about the same medium term effect of giving in to people who want to add work to a shutdown. They are satisfied for about 30 minutes. The failure to say no is sometimes the result of inadequate leadership from the Policy Team. Linked to this oversight is a failure to manage everyone’s expectations in line with what it is possible to get done.

• Inadequate planning with missing critical steps, or failure to identify necessary tasks (insufficient task breakdown). These lacks may be the result of a planning cycle that is too short, lack of knowledge in planning, lack of relevant job knowledge, or lack of expectations by the leadership. Some of the symptoms include failure to anticipate collisions between space, labor, or equipment.

• Unrealistic targets or insufficient resources dedicated to the project (at any level) to make those targets. The policy team might have their heads in the clouds or be remembering when labor cost only $10 an hour. Related to this shortsightedness are unrealistic time frames with a contractor who tells you what you want to hear, while they know the truth. For instance, a contractor might try to take advantage of the situation with a low-ball estimate.

• An inflexible plan that is unable to assimilate new information. This situation may be comparable with someone who gets in over his or her head and doesn’t ask for help (or doesn’t even know there is a problem)!

The last step of every shutdown is starting up.

The issues of plant start up after shutdowns are well known. Pablo Cussatti, of Pepsi Bottling Group reported that, in the past, “the general rule when I got to the plant was that after a shutdown it would take two weeks to get back up to previous efficiencies.” Two weeks of lost or sub-quality production at a Pepsi bottling plant represents a good deal of money.

Mr. Cussatti and the start up team worked to solve the problem. He goes on to say, “We created a shutdown schedule that was reviewed daily; we also created a start-up checklist to focus on the areas that were worked on during the shutdown. We scheduled rework product to be run on the equipment that was worked on, to assure that actual production runs would go smoothly.”

Mr. Cussatti’s team was careful to avoid iatrogenic failures (failures caused by the service person) by working on only the items addressed during the shutdown. “The audit portion is necessary to ensure that only parts and areas that require work are worked on. This approach eliminates unnecessary repairs that could cause more harm to the equipment. A start-up check list is also recommended to avoid the 2-week start-up curve.”

The Plant Shutdown Handbook (PEM in Resource Section) ists a few of the issues of start-up. The important issue is that, like the shutdown list, the start-up list must be tailored to suit each plant. It is necessary to:

De-isolate systems

Clear all permits

Return services to on-line status. Remove all blinds (arrange for positive verification of each blind removal).

Run plant function tests.

Create a punch list of problems indicated by function tests, inspections, and incomplete work.

Remedy punch list problems that will have an impact on startup.

Re-commission the plant

Re-introduce inventory to system in a structured way.

Verify product output quality, run up to full output

Resume stabilized full production