RMC-00-87 IMPROVING THE MAINTENANCE FUNCTION

Description:

In 1992, the Marathon Oil Company refinery in Robinson, Illinois took a hard look at its standing in the Solomon Study of fuels refineries. The Robinson facility was rated very low in terms of Maintenance cost and reliability. It was, in fact, a fourth quartile (lowest) performer in both Maintenance Index and Mechanical Availability. Robinson was a refinery that proved one of Solomon’s conclusions; that high maintenance cost refineries typically had low reliability! After accepting that this Solomon conclusion was valid, Robinson initiated a maintenance function improvement program designed to both reduce maintenance costs and improve reliability. By the 1996 Solomon study, Robinson had significantly improved in both areas. Even more drastic improvement was made by the1998 Solomon study where Robinson, which was now part of the Marathon Ashland joint venture, was shown to have the lowest Maintenance Index for its Equivalent Distillation Capacity (EDC) Group (refinery size) and Refinery Supply Corridor (RSC) (location).