Optimising Shutdowns
Clean Plant automated hosing can help improve the efficiency of shutdowns.
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How Clean Plant automated hosing can reduce risk and improve the efficiency of fixed plant shutdowns
- Begin in-chute high pressure blasting immediately after the last truck
- Eliminate mobilisation delays associated with access and isolations
- Reduction in Shutdown Critical Path
- Eliminate high risk live work
- Reduction in Contractor Cleaning Spend
High Value Opportunities
- Primary crusher circuits
Reduce Total Shutdown Hours Per Year
Maintainers require a safe environment free from the risk of dropped objects (known as process material hangup). In addition, process equipment cannot be maintained without removal of the process material.
With the necessity to have a clean surfaces for maintenance, Plant Cleaning is ALWAYS part of the shutdown critical path.
Due to the need to evacuate material, cleaning is often performed when the plant is in an energised and running state.
Assuming a shutdown interval of 12 weeks, saving as little as 12 hours per shutdown will result in 2 additional days of production per year.
A manual cleaning process requires the plant to fully stop, make the ROM pad safe, build appropriate hard bunting, perform an on the job risk assessment, apply isolations, begin cleaning, and then re-energise the plant to run out cleaning muck.
An in-equipment automated solution such as Clean Chute can begin cleaning seconds after the feed from the last truck has finished being run out.
This approach provides the efficiency benefit that cleaning can take place whilst the equipment is energised.
Plus once equipment is de-energised for isolation, it is stay de-energised (down) until maintenance is complete.
Automated in-chute cleaning at targeted locations, such as primary crusher circuits, can significantly reduce critical path duration.
Large process plant shutdowns can add in the range of $1M per day of costs when compared to normal plant operating costs.
This additional cost hit of $1M per day compounds with losing days of production. For example, assuming 10,000tph x 24 hours x 0.81 OEE x $100/ton = $19M per day of lost value.
Substantially Reduce Shutdown Catastrophic Risk Exposure
Performing maintenance inside a transfer chute is a highly hazardous activity involving:
1. Confined space
2. Hot works in a confined space
3. Risk of dropped object from above (build up stuck to walls)
4. Risk of live equipment (standing on a conveyor)
Due to the immense risk of working in transfer chute, maintenance can only be performed once the plant is cleaned to a high standard. The majority of the plant cleaning required is in transfer chutes.
Many parts of the plant cannot be accessed, even for cleaning, without first de-energising the equipment and removing access doors/hatches. The cleaners are now exposed to the same hazards we were trying to avoid exposing the maintainers to.
Automated hosing ensures that transfers are always cleaned to a satisfactory standard regardless of schedule or labour constraints.
Clean Chute Reduces Contractor Chute Cleaning Expenses
The total cost of contract cleaning to facilitate a fixed plant shutdown can be significant when accounting for the total cost of all of the inputs required:
- Direct personnel to perform the cleaning
- Hire of specialised cleaning equipment, such as blasting trucks
- Hire of slew cranes to facilitate the use of industrial tank cleaning heads
- Bespoke cleaning solutions, such as rope access or boom mounted solutions
The total cost to complete routine cleaning for each shutdown can be significant. In many cases the same task is repeated each and every shutdown.
Automated, In-Plant cleaning provides the ability to reduce cleaning expenses by as much as millions of dollars per year.
Further you can clean your plant at a moments notice for any breakdown situation that may occur when specialised cleaning resources are not available.