Turnaround. Shutdown. Outage. One business.

The planned complete shutdown of a plant for inspection, maintenance and projects. Turnaround, shutdown, overhaul, major overhaul, plant shutdown and outage are often used interchangeably in practice; which term applies usually depends on the company and the site. Planning and controlling it is called turnaround management. At ep-cm it is one of two equally important service areas – the other is capital projects.

Turnaround Management

The German word for a turnaround; we use both interchangeably. Accordingly, preparation is called shutdown planning and the execution shutdown management.

Turnaround Management

Usually used interchangeably with turnaround; planning and controlling it is then called overhaul management. In power plants, people speak of a power plant overhaul or an outage.

Turnaround Management

Often used interchangeably with turnaround or overhaul, and frequently also for shorter or partial shutdowns of individual plant sections. The planning logic and roles are the same as in a large turnaround – only the scale is smaller.

Turnaround Management

The period during which a plant is out of operation for the shutdown – from shutting down to restarting. It is set long in advance, often according to the market, supply obligations or the season, and can hardly be moved. Everything that is to happen during the shutdown has to fit into this window.

Turnaround Scheduling

The team that prepares and carries out a shutdown – from the turnaround manager through scope, planning, procurement and HSE to the coordinators in the plant. How well this organisation is set up is measured by the TAR-Check.

TAR-Check

The leading role in the turnaround organisation – from the definition phase through to closeout and lessons learned. It reports to the operator, not to a contractor carrying out the work.

Turnaround Management

A defined checkpoint in the preparation of a shutdown. At the gate, criteria agreed in advance are used to decide whether preparation is far enough along to move to the next phase – for example before the scope freeze, before contract award or before the work packages are released.

TAR-Check

An executing discipline such as scaffolding, insulation, piping, equipment construction or electrical engineering – and usually also the company that carries it out. In a shutdown, many trades work at the same time in tight spaces; aligning them with each other is the task of execution coordination.

Execution Coordination

A company that works in the plant on behalf of the operator. In a major shutdown, many contractors are on site at the same time; their employees are inducted before their first working day and coordinated during the work.

Onboarding Excellence

Start-up means bringing a plant back into operation step by step after the shutdown until it produces stably. For a new or modified plant, the term is commissioning. In both cases, this is where it shows how cleanly preparation and execution were done.

Turnaround Management

The completion of a shutdown or project: working off punch-list items, handing over documentation, settling costs – and evaluating what went well and what did not. The lessons learned feed into the preparation of the next project.

Turnaround Management

The work scope of the shutdown – and the cut-off date from which it is frozen. The freeze is the most important cut-off date of the preparation: every late addition to the scope costs lead time, material and schedule float.

Scope Management

The rules for handling the work scope: the criteria under which an item is accepted at all, how it is assessed and who decides on it. It comes at the start of shutdown planning – before collection and long before the freeze. Without it, every item is negotiated individually later on.

Scope Management

The critical review of every item submitted: does it have to be done in this shutdown, or can it be done during ongoing operation, in the next shutdown or not at all? The review follows the rules of the scope philosophy, together with operations, maintenance and engineering.

Scope Management

Work that is only added during the shutdown – usually because opening a piece of equipment reveals damage that was not known before. Additional work cannot be avoided entirely, but it can be planned for: with a fixed route for how it is assessed, approved and incorporated into the schedule.

Scope Management

The execution-ready description of an individual job with activities, material, scaffolding, permits, inspection steps and everything else execution needs – also called a job card. It is the basis for scheduling, resource requirements and progress measurement. Good work packages are the difference between a plan and paper.

Technical Planning

A schedule in which every activity is linked to its predecessors and successors. If one activity shifts, the schedule calculates the consequences for all others – hence dynamic. Only a logic-linked schedule shows the critical path.

Turnaround Scheduling

The longest chain of interdependent activities up to the end date. Its activities have no float: if one of them is delayed, the end is delayed. All other activities have float – they may shift without putting the end date at risk, until the float is used up.

Turnaround Scheduling

ep-cm's own method for deriving the sequence of work in a shutdown from the available float: whoever has the least float goes first. The ranking is set again every shift – it comes from the schedule, not from habit.

Turnaround Scheduling

The progress of each activity is measured objectively – against intermediate steps defined in advance, not by feel or self-reporting alone. In a shutdown this happens every shift, so a deviation becomes visible while there is still time to take corrective action.

Execution Coordination

The control of all handovers between parties, trades and construction phases: who delivers what to whom, and by when? Many delays arise not within one discipline but between two.

Project Management

Health, Safety and Environment – occupational safety, health and environmental protection; with Q for Quality also HSEQ. In a shutdown, HSE comes first because many people and companies are working at the same time in a plant that otherwise runs under pressure and temperature.

Onboarding Excellence

The orderly separation of a plant or plant section from energy and media before work is done on it: shutting off, draining, depressurising, securing and documenting. Only then is the work permit issued – which is why isolation management is part of the schedule and not alongside it.

Turnaround Management

A metal plate inserted between two flanges to isolate a pipeline safely. Once the spades are set, a plant section is separated from the rest and work can begin; they are removed again before start-up. Each one is recorded in a list so that none is forgotten.

Turnaround Management

The written approval to carry out a specific job at a specific point in the plant. It is only issued once the plant section is secured and the protective measures are in place. A shutdown needs a great many of them – they must be available in time, otherwise the work stops.

Turnaround Management

Quality assurance and quality control: quality assurance defines how inspection is done, quality control checks the result – for example welds, pressure tests and documentation. That is why the inspection steps belong in every work package.

Technical Planning

In the pharmaceutical industry, the documented proof that a plant has been correctly installed, functions and delivers the intended result in line with Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) – in three stages: IQ, OQ and PQ. Every change goes through change control and can trigger requalification. ep-cm controls these steps in the schedule; the qualification itself remains with the operator's quality organisation.

Pharma & Biotech

Everything that has to happen before the employees of a contractor company are allowed to work in the plant: registration, certificates, safety induction, testing and site access. Before a major shutdown, this affects a great many people in a short time.

Onboarding Excellence

The structured self-evaluation of an organisation using a fixed set of questions. In the TAR-Check, each group in the team answers the questions on its own topics – then ep-cm experts check the picture on site.

TAR-Check

Comparing your own results with others: with the industry average and with good and best practice, i.e. what well-run and the best-run organisations achieve. Only the comparison shows whether a value is good or merely familiar.

TAR-Check

How far an organisation has developed in a topic – from initial, rather random processes to fixed standards that are lived in practice. The TAR-Check determines it for each analysis element; the recommendations start at exactly this level.

TAR-Check

An independent assessment of a capital project by Independent Project Analysis (IPA), which compares projects against a large benchmark database – usually at the decision gates of the early phase. Anyone presenting a schedule there should have it reviewed beforehand, ideally eight to ten weeks in advance.

SMI

Fourteen recognised checkpoints for the quality of a schedule, originally developed by the US Defense Contract Management Agency – for example activities without successors, hard constraints or negative float. The SMI builds on them and checks 35 criteria in total.

SMI

The structured early phase of a capital project, staged from FEL 1 to FEL 3 with a decision gate at the end of each stage. With every stage, the cost estimate becomes more accurate and changes become more expensive – which is why this is where it is decided how reliable a project will be later on.

Feasibility Analysis

Overall responsibility for a project: building the organisation, providing resources, negotiating, deciding and enforcing on behalf of the client. When ep-cm takes on this role, the delegable owner functions lie with us for a defined period.

Project Management

The umbrella term for scheduling, cost control and document control – the technical and commercial part of project management: schedule, cost, documents and progress are planned, monitored and controlled, while leadership stays with the client. Internationally “project controls”, in German-speaking countries “Projektsteuerung”.

Project Controls on demand

Every cost estimate has an accuracy range – the range within which the actual costs will lie with high probability. The earlier in the project, the wider it is; the AACE classes describe which accuracy is realistic in which phase. CAPEX stands for the capital expenditure of a project.

Cost Estimating & Budget

The ongoing control of project costs: comparing budget, actual costs and forecast, showing deviations early and initiating corrective action. One of the three building blocks of project controls, alongside scheduling and document control.

Cost Control

A performance measurement method that looks at cost and progress together: how much work has actually been delivered for the money spent? From this you can project what the project will cost in the end – the EAC (Estimate at Completion).

Cost Control

The orderly management of all project documents – drawings, calculations, inspection reports – with version, status and approval. It ensures that everyone works with the valid version and that complete documentation is handed over at the end.

Document Control

A unit of working capacity: 1.0 FTE corresponds to one full-time position, 0.5 FTE to half of one. With Project Controls on demand, demand is measured in FTE – in each phase as much as the project needs at that moment.

Project Controls on demand

The conversion of an existing plant to achieve more capacity, better efficiency or a different product. Much is prepared during ongoing operation and tied in during the shutdown – a revamp combines project and turnaround.

Project Management

The connection of a new plant section to the existing plant. It is usually only possible during a shutdown – this one date is often fixed years in advance and drives the entire project planning.

Project Management

In the pharmaceutical industry, the transfer of a manufacturing process – from development to production or from one site to another. It includes adapting the plant, qualification, validation and the evidence required for regulatory approval. A transfer is a project in its own right with its own schedule.

Pharma & Biotech

Leading execution on the construction site: coordinating work, monitoring safety and quality, recording progress, preparing acceptance. Construction management is the international term for it.

Site Management & Construction Management

An item not yet completed at acceptance – a defect or rework. A items prevent commissioning; B and C items are worked off afterwards. A short list is the result of discipline during execution, not of leniency at the end.

Site Management & Construction Management

The answer the contract provides to additional work, disruptions and changes – for both contracting parties. What matters is documentation from day one, so that every claim can be checked on the facts.

Contract & Claims Management

The preventive part of contract and claims management: before award, sharpening the scope of services and allocating risks deliberately; during the project, keeping obligations, deadlines and instruction authorities in a register and identifying deviations early. Claim management builds on this.

Contract & Claims Management

Specialists work for a limited period within another company's organisation and under its direction. In Germany this is governed by the Temporary Agency Work Act (AÜG), which requires a licence – ep-cm holds one.

Staffing

The three stages of the oil and gas industry: upstream is production, midstream is processing, transport and storage, downstream is refining. On this website, upstream and midstream are covered under Oil & Gas, downstream under Refining & Fuels.

Oil & Gas

The core plant of petrochemicals: in cracking furnaces, naphtha or gas is broken down at very high temperatures into smaller molecules such as ethylene and propylene – the basic materials for plastics and many chemicals. A cracker usually supplies an entire integrated site; when it stops, many downstream plants stop too.

Petrochemicals & Crackers

The insulated core of an air separation unit, in which air is separated into oxygen, nitrogen and argon at very low temperatures. Work on the cold box is often on the critical path during a shutdown.

Industrial Gases

Processes that break plastic waste down into its chemical building blocks so that raw materials can be made from it again – for example by pyrolysis, decomposition under heat without oxygen, or by depolymerisation. Many of these plants are the first of their kind.

Circular Economy & Biorefining

Capturing carbon dioxide from exhaust gases, for example from a power plant or an industrial process, in order to store or reuse it. A retrofit intervenes in an existing plant and brings its own permitting and engineering requirements.

Power Plants & Generation

The transmission of large amounts of electricity over long distances using direct current instead of alternating current – with lower losses and also possible as an underground cable. In Germany, the large transmission lines that bring wind power from the north to the south are HVDC links.

Energy Transition & Infrastructure

The official approval procedure for large infrastructure projects such as power lines. It bundles the necessary permits, involves the public and the authorities, and often takes years – which is why it belongs in the schedule as an activity in its own right.

Energy Transition & Infrastructure

A plant that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity. If the electricity comes from renewable sources, it is called green hydrogen. Large electrolysers are usually the first plant of their kind at their site.

Hydrogen & Electrification

Electrical, instrumentation and control engineering – everything in a plant that carries electricity, measures and controls. In a shutdown, a trade in its own right with its own inspections and isolations.

Technical Planning