Sinclair Oil (Sinclair) operates two refineries in Wyoming, which serve customers from the Rocky Mountains to the Great Plains. The company’s total crude oil refining capacity exceeds four million gallons per day, and its business is built around providing the highest quality gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, asphalt, and petrochemical feedstock available.
Sinclair’s fixed equipment inspection program was reactive rather than proactive. Inspection procedures and practices were not standardized and varied from inspector to inspector. The refineries also relied heavily on third-party contractors to carry out much of the inspections. Information management was largely manual and paper-based, with little integration to the computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) and other maintenance workflow tools. As a result, there were often long lead times between inspections, recommendation writing, and final validation and approval.
The primary challenge Sinclair engineers faced was one of culture change–identifying best practices and getting everyone, from executives to operating and maintenance personnel, to make the transition from reactive to proactive asset management strategy.
