Planned shutdowns are essential when conducting preventive maintenance, inspections, and equipment replacement in order to ensure operational continuity throughout the year. Although necessary, shutdowns can result in considerable financial loss. Also, managing shutdown implementation, execution and the subsequent return to operations is a significant challenge. This is why it is crucial to establish a meticulous shutdown plan with the right partners beforehand.  

In order to address the various issues involved with major shutdowns, a set of components must be defined and respected. Each phase of your planned shutdown involves rigorous analysis of the nature of the work, coordination with the various contractors, and risk management to limit the financial impact and guarantee the safety of the necessary resources.    

Regardless of your industry sector, it is essential to develop and follow a plan that mitigates disruption to your daily operations and ensures the safety of workers and assets.   

 

Here, 5 essential elements to consider ensuring a successful shutdown:

 

Plan and mobilize the required resources for your planned shutdown

The planning process allows you to identify and prevent potential deficiencies such as a lack of resources i.e., qualified personnel, equipment, and materials. To be optimal, the planning process must be sufficiently anticipated. For example, planning must take place weeks or even months before your production shutdown, depending on the scope. Often clients do not allocate enough time to conduct a proper shutdown, however this can be easily remedied.  To achieve this, we suggest you ask yourself a few questions:  

• Where you and your team sufficiently prepared during your last shutdown?  
• During the planned shutdown, what difficulties were encountered? What shortcomings were identified?  
• How much time was spent on unplanned and unexpected tasks?   
• Could these tasks have been considered or avoided with better planning? 
• Have all safety standards and procedures been followed? 

Our pro tip 1: We suggest that you start planning your shutdown approximately two to four months in advance. The more complex your shutdown, the earlier you should start planning. This will also allow you to solicit competitive bids from safety experts dedicated to planned shutdowns and find the necessary subcontractors. Enough lead time will be required to educate and train personnel on all safety and emergency procedures.

Pro tip 2: We recommend that you evaluate the number of resources required. Generally, shutdown involves numerous resources. Once you have identified the required personnel, you must ensure coordination between resources such as managers, logistics coordinators, field coordinators, supervisors, industrial firefighters, rescue workers etc. In recent years, mobilization of qualified personnel has proven to be a difficult task, particularly due to the lack of manpower.  It is therefore essential to anticipate your resource needs, and partner with a service provider capable of ensuring rapid deployment of qualified personnel.  

  

Evaluate your risks 

Each planned shutdown involves various levels of risk for which preventative measures must be implemented. During the planning stage, a thorough risk assessment must be conducted. We recommend that you utilize experts to carry out a health and safety audit. This audit allows us to measure and prevent all risks identified on the site that could potentially affect the success of the shutdown and the health and safety of the workers. Post audit, safe work practices are developed and implemented. Safe work practices are to be respected by all workers present.  

Fundamentals to remember: 

• A risk assessment is crucial. 
• Security requirements should be defined to protect all personnel.
• Be aware of applicable safety and emergency procedures. Ensure that they are respected throughout the operation.   
• Outsource the management and supervision of your shutdown to a recognized security services company. This will allow you to manage unexpected situations. 

 

Comply with standards and procedures 

There are various safety considerations during a planned shutdown. They require thorough knowledge of regulations in place specific to your industry and related to the nature of the shutdown itself. Throughout the project, it is essential to ensure that all best practices related to regulatory and standardized requirements are applied.    

It is important to remember that each stakeholder has a pivotal role to play during the planned shutdown. For example, Confined Space Supervisors have a crucial role to play in ensuring the health and safety of all confined space workers.

Non-exhaustive items to consider during your shutdown: 

• Compliance with confined space regulations 
• Compliance with fire regulations
• Compliance with protective equipment regulations
• Have an emergency response plan. This allows you to anticipate and eliminate risks that may have gone unnoticed. We recommend consulting with an organization with the necessary expertise to assist in creating and implementing your emergency response plan. This is particularly of importance when your shutdown involves the use of external resources such as the fire department or paramedics.  

In conclusion, be sure to identify and apply all required standards and procedures to your planned shutdown. 

 

Apply safe work practices 

As previously mentioned, instilling site-specific safety standards and procedures plays a major role in ensuring the safety of all personnel during the shutdown. As such, we recommend that you pre-define and ensure compliance with safe work practices. Consult with specialists to develop a safe work program that is 100% compliant with the various regulations, standards, and Health & Safety best practices.

 

Maintain safe confined spaces  

When work is carried out in confined spaces, safety requires exceptional rigor, continuous vigilance and knowledge of the applicable standards and regulations. No risk should be neglected as it can jeopardize the health and safety of workers. Even minor emergencies require intervention from properly trained personnel to ensure a quick and effective response. Having confined space protocols helps prevent any minor emergency from turning into a serious or even fatal event and ultimately minimizes any delays in restarting production.

Equip yourself with a comprehensive monitoring program that can be adapted to your confined spaces.   

Use qualified confined space supervisors who will ensure:   

• Confined space monitoring, from worker entry to exit  
• Air quality verification (atmospheric tests and gas detection)  
• Identification of risks and preventive measures.  
• Immediate evacuation as required.   

As you plan for your next shutdown, know that pre-planning and your choice of shutdown and confined space security partner are critical to the success of your shutdown.  
 
GardaWorld has at your disposal a complete team of security experts, able to assist you during all stages of your planned shutdown, from planning, mobilizing and coordinating all necessary resources to ensure a seamless and safe operation.   

 

For a free assessment of your needs, contact our team today.