(36b) An Approach to Integrate Plant Reliability Efforts with a Mechanical Integrity Program

Maintenance groups are expected to ensure reliable operation of the equipment they maintain to meet operation's demands. Operations groups are expected to ensure sufficient, quality product is made to meet the business demands. Safety groups are expected to ensure that engineering and administrative controls are in place to minimize risk. Everyone expected to work without causing safety, health or environmental harm while focusing on their group's demands. This paper presents a preliminary concept that combines these reliability and safety efforts, such that the maintenance, operations and safety groups speak the same equipment reliability and integrity language to minimize the overall business risk. This proposed approach combines existing plant reliability efforts with several elements in Process Safety Management (PSM). The basic steps include using Process Hazards Analysis (PHA) risk-assessments to identify safety-critical equipment, ensuring accurate and up-to-date Process Safety Information (PSI), establishing the Mechanical Integrity (MI) Program structure, establishing Planned Maintenance (PM) programs for inspections and tests, and creating maintenance-specific procedures. The MI Quality Assurance (QA) Program sustains these combined equipment reliability and integrity efforts, ensuring that the equipment is properly designed (via PSI), fabricated as designed (via Management of Change, MOC), and installed as designed (via Pre-Startup Safety Reviews, PSSR). The MI QA Program ensures that the equipment is operated and maintained as designed by trained personnel, as well. The paper concludes with an example of this approach on a process safety-critical piece of equipment. Some benefits include being able to: 1) share and document best MI and PM practices between different sites; 2) focus sometimes limited PM-related resources on the process safety-critical equipment; and 3) help monitor the essential reliability efforts to ensure continued safe operation to meet each group's demands.