Setting the Revamp Basis: What Is Current Operation?

A revamp aims to modify a plant to meet some new combination of capacity, feed, product, safety or regulatory requirements. The starting point on any revamp is the current plant operation. Often, this is poorly understood. Plant mythology may have grown up over years. This mythology hides both problems and opportunities. Without understanding a plants current operation, revamps fail due to not fixing the hidden problems. They also cost too much by missing the hidden capabilities of the existing asset. Full understanding of the needs and potential of a plant requires a careful test to find the hidden flaws and unexpected capabilities of the facility.

A rigorous test run requires planning. Objectives must be clearly outlined, personnel assembled, and data gathered. All required data must be gathered and kept. A successful test run creates the starting point for identifying needed modifications. The objective is to define all needed modifications necessary to meet goals – and avoid overinvestment at the same time. An outline of necessary steps, applied to an example test run is shown.