A US-headquartered chemical company operates around fifty production and manufacturing sites around the globe. Demonstrating compliance to local, international and internal regulations and guidelines are of the utmost importance to ensure worker and environmental safety and to maintain the license to operate. To stay on top of this, MaxGrip was asked to develop a blueprint for an improved process and way of working, as well as to demonstrate success in a pilot at one plant before further roll out.

Challenge

The European base and main production location of this leader in specialty chemicals is in the Netherlands. Safeguarding the Safety Integrity Level (SIL) for components as part of the Dutch regulation (BRZO – Besluit Risico’s Zware Ongevallen) is an essential element of showing compliance. To improve safety practices, the chemicals producer wanted to optimize the process of SIL tests. They wanted to use their current asset management software system, but needed to have a more robust process in place to stay on top of compliancy. The company realized and indicated that improved internal collaboration would be an important condition for success; with a clearer division of work and a better process in place to stimulate cross-departmental collaboration.

Approach

We started out with making a blueprint and roadmap for improvement. MaxGrip consultants analyzed the data integrity and filtered significant information from the documentation system. In a workshop with all relevant disciplines and departments, we mapped out the current process steps of the work order flows for SIL components and defined the building blocks for the improved process design and standards. With all the information and data gathered MaxGrip consultants performed a fit/gap analysis that clearly stated bottle necks and identified the actions needed for the desired process. This resulted in a workflow blueprint and roadmap for deployment which was verified by company stakeholders in a second workshop.

In the next stage we deployed the improvement roadmap focusing on all important dimensions of a company’s ability to perform.

Results

The pilot proved successful and was put into production. Through the improvements, the chemicals producer is able to realize a better and more efficient workflow for SIL components. The new way of working offers full transparency and structure which improves safety and safeguards compliance.

With a Return on Investment of just a couple of months and an estimated 20 to 25 % increased work efficiency, the project is a success. The chemicals manufacturer asked MaxGrip to expand and rollout the project at other plants.

Get in touch.

Alex Lemuz

Alex Lemuz
Sales Manager - Americas

alex.lemuz@maxgrip.com
T: +1 832-933-1602

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