How much do you know about the inextricable link between gas detector rental and safety conditions during plant turnarounds and maintenance shutdowns?
Plant turnarounds and maintenance shutdowns are different, but not that different. The terms tend to be used interchangeably but there are subtle differences. It is useful to understand the difference between the use of the words plant and maintenance in front of the words shutdown, turnaround and outage.
Plant turnarounds
Plant turnarounds, plant shutdowns and plant outages are all used to describe a planned break in production to enable preventative maintenance, renovations or upgrades.
Wikipedia defines plant turnarounds (or TARs) as scheduled events during which an entire process unit of an industrial plant (refinery, petrochemical plant, power plant, pulp and paper mill, etc) is shut down for an extended period for revamp and/or renewal.
This extended period of time can range from several days to several weeks, depending on the size and complexity of the plant.
Turnaround (plant turnaround or maintenance turnaround) is a blanket term that encompasses more specific terms such as I&Ts (Inspection & Testing), corrective repair, preventive maintenance, strip-down and overhaul, component replacement work, revamps, and de-bottlenecking projects.
Maintenance shutdowns
Maintenance shutdowns and outages are usually not planned. They can sometimes be caused by accidents and natural disasters, but most involve unplanned maintenance on a major piece of equipment in the plant.
The terms are obviously quite close in meaning; the difference is in the scale of work. When the word plant is used, it tends to mean an entire operation is affected. When maintenance is used, it implies an item of equipment.
HOWEVER, when you are discussing a turnaround, shutdown or outage in your operations, everyone understands the context in which the words apply. Even though the technically-correct definitions vary slightly, they can still be used interchangeably because everyone knows about the outage, turnaround or shutdown being discussed.
Expensive
Plant turnarounds are expensive. There’s the lost production while the process unit is offline, plus direct costs for labour, tools, heavy equipment and materials used in the project, and usually involve a manning peak. They are the most significant portion of an operation’s annual maintenance budget and can affect the company’s bottom line if mismanaged.
New hazards
Radius BZ1 gas detector rental
As well as the manning peak, plant turnarounds involve activities outside the normal routines, which bring new hazards onto the site. Where there is a need to mitigate against the risk of toxic or flammable environments during a turnaround, the use of rental gas detectors is often the perfect solution.
Gas detector rental
Entec maintains a large fleet of rental gas detectors for our gas detector hire service. These cover the full range of portable gas detectors from basic single-gas instruments up to multi-gas and specialist instruments. We also have area monitors available to rent, such as the new Radius™ BZ1 Area Gas Monitor from Industrial Scientific.
Protecting staff during manning peaks
Most industrial sites we deal with have the right number of personal gas detectors for the average staffing level. When site personnel numbers swell (by hundreds of people in some cases), issuing a rental gas detector to all affected personnel provides the best level of protection against exposure to hazardous environments.
Our largest-ever gas detector rental project
Entec’s largest-ever gas detector rental campaign is underway currently. We have around 230 four-gas units deployed to a large site during one of its major turnarounds. This rental gas detector fleet complements the site’s normal contingent of 400 gas detectors.
Gas detector rental for small operations
Our rental offering is also used by much smaller operators. A typical rental involves just one, or a handful of instruments, and may extend for as little as one day.
Intermittent use cases
Gas detector rental units are also useful for sites or applications where the hazard isn’t present all the time. For example, some of our rental gas detectors go to contractors or service companies that only work in confined spaces from time to time.
Compliance benefits
The peace of mind in renting a gas detector from Entec comes in knowing that it has been freshly issued by the manufacturer’s Authorised Service Centre. It will have been properly serviced, and it will have a current calibration certificate. And of course, you only rent the gas detector for as long as you need it.
When you need a gas detector rental for an intermittent use or need extra gas detectors for a special maintenance campaign, here’s what to do…
Talk to the team at Entec; we’ll give you a quote for the package that best suits your needs.
- Call (06) 758-3030 »
- Email gas@entec.co.nz »
- Or send us an enquiry using the online contact form below…
