In the manufacturing industry, production downtime during annual shutdowns can cost millions. This is an excellent opportunity for L&D managers to contribute to the business bottom-line. Let’s say there’s a large petroleum refinery that requires a 15-day shutdown for its yearly maintenance operations. As the operators are predominantly trained and skilled (through repetition) on routine operations, the shutdown period is difficult for everyone, not to mention revenue loss. During shutdown, there are many planned and unplanned activities to be performed in a stipulated time. Everyone has to work harder to finish things faster. Operators perform several procedures at a time due to the additional work load. Though they may be trained during induction on all these procedures, they are generally not trained to take care of several procedures simultaneously. Consequently, work slows down—hence the 15-day shutdown. To compensate, production managers drive operators to work harder during downtime to restart the plant early.
However, learning consultants advise that exceptional skills be given more focus than routine skills, so there’s less wastage. During the initial orientation / training, when plant operators are trained on both routine and maintenance operations, the latter should be given more emphasis. Later, a couple of weeks before the scheduled shutdown, the L&D manager could make the operators take simulations or walkthrough of shutdown, maintenance, and restart procedures. This way, when the actual shutdown occurs, operators perform the same with equivalent speed as routine operations. Even a 20-25% reduction in downtime adds significantly to plant throughput and profitability.
To illustrate, large refinery companies like Reliance process about 0.66 million barrels of crude oil per day. Given that crude refining margins on refinery products is $11 per barrel, even if the L&D manager can save a day of turnaround, their direct contribution to EBITDA = $7.25 million or Rs.30 crores. The investment in such turnaround training would just be a fraction of the returns. In addition, the intangible benefits accrued could include:
- Reduction of stress in supervisor-operator interactions
- Increase in operator confidence
- Reduction of safety hazards
