Celonis Plant Maintenance Navigator transforms plant maintenance in the oil & gas and chemicals industries

The inherent complexities of these formidable infrastructures — and the myriad processes required to maintain them — make it fiendishly difficult to gain process insights that significantly drive improvements. Unnecessary downtime and inefficient labor utilization are common in plants the world over. And operators constantly run the risk of compliance violations that also impact production performance and profitability.

The average cost of unplanned downtime for a large plant has been estimated at well over $120m a year – and has been rising fast in recent years. For context, Deloitte estimates that a 200,000 barrels-per-day offshore oil platform experiencing about 12 hours of unplanned downtime can lead to a US$8 million cost in deferred production.

The quest for end-to-end visibility

Finding the right balance between proactive maintenance and managing aging infrastructure is essential. But traditional maintenance methods often struggle to keep up with evolving safety, compliance, and asset-management requirements. This leads to inefficiencies, rising costs, and risk.

The only way to successfully manage and optimize plant-maintenance operations is by having an end-to-end view of all the processes involved. Approaching maintenance as a singular process in and of itself is a mistake.

Introducing the Plant Maintenance Navigator

The Plant Maintenance Navigator is an out-of-the-box solution designed to monitor and improve the many hundreds — and often many thousands — of interconnected processes involved in plant maintenance operations in the oil & gas and chemical sectors. Developed in partnership with specialist management consultancy Marcadus, the app is built on the Celonis

Process Intelligence Platform and uses process mining technology to identify value-creation opportunities hidden in maintenance-process data.

The Plant Maintenance Navigator is one of four purpose-built apps in the Celonis Platform Apps Program. It uses data from source systems, connecting and monitoring all plant-maintenance processes with order management, supply chain, inventory management, purchasing, and production planning.

Because the Plant Maintenance Navigator is integrated with Celonis’ object-centric process mining (OCPM) capabilities, it can help enterprises unearth deeper and more contextual insights about processes than have previously been possible. Rather than relatively simple insights about individual processes, the Plant Maintenance Navigator generates insights on end-to-end workflows. This makes it easy to identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies in the plant maintenance workflow and accordingly fix them.

The Plant Maintenance Navigator gives business leaders the insights necessary to make recommendations for optimizing plant maintenance with confidence. More generally, it can help them improve plant efficiency and reliability, prolonging machine lifespan and preventing costly breakdowns.

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The moment everything changed for a maintenance operator

One plant maintenance operator turned to the Plant Maintenance Navigator after equipment (and overall plant) downtime began to rise. The operator quickly identified the root causes of inefficiencies and began a program of improvements. Automations were introduced to monitor processes in real time, triggering interventions when needed. The operator managed to slash downtime for individual assets and overall production, and reduce delays in sourcing materials.

Benefits that move the bottom line

The Plant Maintenance Navigator can help plant operators in the oil & gas and chemicals sectors in the following ways:

• Labor productivity — optimize work scheduling and task allocation to enhance technician efficiency and reduce downtime. Analyze and address root causes of rework and improve the first-time, right-repair ratio. Repair time is reduced by cutting material and permit delays.
• Maintenance costs — implement predictive maintenance strategies to reduce unnecessary corrective and preventive-maintenance expenses.
• Compliance — ensure plant operations adhere to the designated repair-time targets and all relevant safety, environmental, and regulatory standards. Avoid penalties and improve public perception.

By improving the Plant Maintenance process in these areas, Asset Reliability can be significantly increased.

Plant Maintenance Navigator is an app that can be used across management teams. Plant leaders can more effectively plot strategies, aligning maintenance priorities with an organization's goals and objectives. Operations managers can oversee day-to-day production activities, ensuring operations align with maintenance schedules and objectives. And of course, maintenance managers can confidently plan, organize, and oversee all maintenance activities.

The efficient operation of plants in the oil & gas and chemicals industry is about more than productivity. It is essential for the protection of workers, the public, and the environment. In this respect, the Plant Maintenance Navigator is an important solution for plant operators in the oil & gas and chemicals industries.