Developing a Maintenance Management Model for Tabriz Petrochemical Company

Tabriz petrochemical company (TPC) is a manufacturing subsidiary of NPC (National Petrochemical Company). TPC terminated 2004 with a near-zero profit. An investigation showed that the following as root causes of unacceptable financial performance of TPC: 1. Interrupted feed, 2. Sales prices subsidized by the government, 3. Frequent shutdowns and breakdowns, 4. Production loss and different wastes This study intends to find some solutions for the above problems. Because problems 1 and 2 are out of TPC control, the study concentrates on developing a way to resolve problems 3 and 4. During past two years, TPC has had several accidents, fires, shutdowns and break downs. The project goals are assigned to reduce shutdowns and breakdowns, and to minimize loss, accidents and inventory. Achieving these goals will result in increasing plant availability, profit, productivity, reliability and quality. The maintenance process has an extraordinary role in achieving aforesaid goals. While known as a troublesome one, it is the most important support process. Maintenance involves the largest portion of employees. It includes the second largest expenditure of the company, after feed. Maintenance is the main outsourced activity in TPC. The symptoms of problems with the maintenance process are: • High rate of emergency breakdowns, • Low rate of plant availability, • Low Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF), • High Mean Time To Repair (MTTR), • Excessive production loss. This study started with the application of SWOT analysis, Maintenance Assessment and Benchmarking methods to the process. Having evaluated several petrochemical companies, two benchmarks, i.e., Chiba from Japan and Cheil from the South Korea were selected. After Gap and environmental Analysis, it was realized that three alternatives, named, BPR (Business Process Reengineering), RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) and TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) could solve our problems. Using Business &Operational Impacts, Risk Assessment, and Cost/Benefit Analysis for above three alternatives, TPM was evaluated as the most appropriate model for TPC.