PaSTA Value Prop

Work Management is the key ingredient in Asset Management.  It is the critical part of the processes where resources are applied to assure high performance and reliability of the capital operating assets.

Figure 1 shows a normalized benchmark of production plants showing the relationship between Production and Costs.  The green square plants (PRO refers to Plant Reliability Optimization) are those plants who achieved the highest reliability and production (First Quintile).  These top quintile plants have certain attributes that drive excellence in performance.  These are:

• Recently re-engineered Reliability Basis
• Strong Condition Management Process
• Strong, disciplined Work Week Management process
   – Schedule out 4 to 13 weeks ahead on routine maintenance
   – Evident, strong, disciplined plant daily, weekly, and monthly rhythm
   – Strong turnaround/outage process
• Critical Equipment has life cycle management
• Actively measured PM Compliance, Schedule Compliance, Sponsored Work, among other key performance indicators

An organization must assure that resources are used in an efficient and effective manner to yield the highest return on the employment of those resources.  The processes must assure that resources are applied working on the right work at the right time in an efficient, highly productive manner.  The best practice Work Management process is Work Week Management.  PaSTA is designed to drive the best practice Work Week Management process both through routine maintenance work and through turnaround/outage work.  PaSTA optimizes:

• Process visibility
• Intergroup coordination
• Process communication
• Early detection of process issues
• Preparations for efficient work

PaSTA is designed to drive efficient Maintenance work, but is also designed to assure that the operations role is fully integrated into the process.  PaSTA used as part of the Work Week Management process has demonstrated great improvement in resource utilization.  The figure 2 below shows the results of a study performed to identify the utilization improvement associated with implementing disciplined Work Week Management using PaSTA’s process.  It shows that for an average plant, a` 40% increase in planning results in 30% higher utilization of resources.  In other words, a twenty person maintenance organization will behave and accomplish the work of a twenty-six person organization with only a 40% improvement.  Imagine if the organization can improve the process by 80%….

PaSTA provides real time visibility of the execution of process to the front line leaders.  This visibility permits the leadership to quickly identify and resolve process issues.

One key to a plant’s performance excellence is assuring the right work is being done at the right time.  PaSTA provides the ease of assuring that happens and also supports many of the issues that challenge that success.  One of the leading causes that destroy doing the right work at the right time is all the break-in or emergent work that hits the plant each day.  PaSTA provides the means to manage and control such emergent work that assures the right work at the right time is accomplished.

The following Figure shows a fleet of 20 production plants that rolled out PaSTA and were able to make significant improvement in PM Compliance, Schedule Compliance, while driving emergent work down.

In the figure 4 below, it is even more evident that the organization was able to focus the process using PaSTA to get the right work done at the right time.  This figure is for a single plant, and shows that over time the organization learned how to control emergent work.  In fact, this plant enacted two improvements to their process supported by PaSTA that enabled this success.

PaSTA is a real time visual management system fully integrated with the Plant’s CMMS system that facilitates and manages the work execution process at the front line.  It automates the Work Week Management process during routine unit operations and unit turnaround/outages.  It will provide first and second line supervisors immediate, discrete visibility of the success of the processes of work planning, scheduling, and execution.

PaSTA assures that the right things are being done at the right time with the quality required.  Planning Horizons, Scheduling Horizons, and Assignment Horizons are visible from the work planning phases through the work execution phases.  Planning quality increases as planners troubleshoot establishing quality instructions resulting in better preparation for the workforce to execute without error.  PaSTA drives operational throttling of emergent work. 

PaSTA Return on Investment  

1. Improved Resource Productivity:  From Figure 2, assume a 40% improvement in resource productivity.  For one plant of 20 workers, a 30% improvement will occur.  Hence, that organization will have the equivalent of 6 additional workers. So for that one plant, assuming an $80,000 burdened rate for personnel, PaSTA will provide $480,000 of improved resource utilization.
2. Improved Production Costs:  this occurs from higher reliability of the critical production equipment.  And this higher reliability occurs as a result of getting the right work done at the right time efficiently and effectively with PaSTA.  Also the healthy integration of operations and maintenance achieves higher performance.  From Figure 1, the contribution of this efficient and effective use of resources to the First Quintile plants is conservatively equivalent to a 10% reduction in unit costs or an increase in production of 10%.  A 10% improvement in the unit costs can be more than $1M per year at some production plants.
3. Increase in Safety:  When workers plan their work and work their plan, safety is at its maximum.  To work in a proactive environment protects the workers by taking the time in the identification and communication of risk directly to the front line.  A reactive culture historically has higher safety issues over the proactive culture.
4. Reduction of Backlog:  Studies have shown that when backlog is reduced and controlled the workforce has higher confidence and report higher quality of life.