Post-maintenance Cleanup and Insulation

Boots on the Ground Series

I believe that one of the duties of an operator is to go and inspect a job or project after it’s said to be completed. Don’t just sign off on it until the area has been inspected and cleaned up, meaning all materials brought out for the activity and any debris hoses and scaffolding pieces have been removed. Now, in order to remove the scaffolding, the insulation has to go on. This means that insulation has to be reinstalled in a timely manner. The big idea behind all this is so the operator can get around the equipment without stumbling and tripping on material and debris left behind from the maintenance activities. This applies to long term capital projects as well. Inspection and clean-up should be done after every shift.

What I often see in refineries  is that the job goes on and everyone is excited and ten people come out with a wheelbarrow full of material and leave it in the unit. Pallets or hoses or whatever. This stuff is strewn across the work area and scaffolding is set up around the equipment. Often it will be years before the insulation is added back. By then, the original job has been long forgotten but there is still scaffolding left out in the unit. Some units might not even realize they have been paying rental fees on the scaffolding all that time.

It’s the operator’s job to police this and make enough noise so that it happens. Now, I’m not ragging on operators. The operators don’t leave anything in the unit. It’s not their fault that other people come into their space and leave stuff lying around. It’s kind of like having a buddy come into your garage and drop a bag of old beer bottles and screwdrivers and then just walk away. I am saying this because the operators need to make sure their buddies don’t come into THEIR house and leave anything behind that they could then be held accountable for.

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