Developing Operational Excellence in the Process Industry


Course Info

Code PO2-107

Duration 5 Days

Format Classroom

Developing Operational Excellence in the Process Industry

Course Summary

Process industries deal with a variety of challenges including global competition, improving manufacturing efficiencies, and capacity constraints. In addition, some operations and processes can involve high risk which can impact your entire organisation.


This course provides you with comprehensive strategies for developing operational excellence to improve business processes, safety, and culture. You will explore strategic and operational best practices in safety, risk, reliability, and quality management. Lessons from High Reliability Organisations (HROs) provide you with models of learning and unlearning from near misses and failures.


  • Describe best practices for achieving operational excellence.
  • Identify and outline the effects of technical and human risk on operations.
  • Develop a customised operational improvement plan that addresses areas of significant risk.
  • Apply benchmarking techniques to generate performance metrics.
  • Leverage the experiences of High Reliability Organisations (HROs).
  • Design an effective action plan to inculcate operational excellence across the organisation.
  • Operations, Maintenance, and Reliability Professionals
  • Safety Professionals
  • Engineering and Technical Support Professionals
  • Professionals involved in process and quality improvement activities

This course uses a variety of adult learning styles to aid full understanding and comprehension.

Participants will review case studies to highlight key areas of importance and possible areas for faults.

They will be supplied with the best tools required to carry out learning exercises to improve their skills. Participants will analyse the examples to gain a thorough understanding of how these skills, techniques and methods apply in the workplace.


Course Content & Outline

Section 1: Safety Systems and Managing Risk
  • Understand the principle of safety first.
  • Define behavioural safety through examples and strategies.
  • Discuss how to best learn from failures.
  • Compare and evaluate accidents and incidents (including near misses).
  • Describe safety taxonomies.
  • Examine safety systems including Permit to Work (PTW) and Hazard and Operability Study (HAZOP).
  • Explore risk assessment strategies.
  • Outline the structure of a comprehensive safety management system.

 

Section 2: Ensuring Operational Continuity through Plant Reliability
  • Identify operational risks and mitigation strategies.
  • Outline the key components of a Vulnerability Assessment.
  • Contrast the differences between vulnerability and resilience.
  • Explore Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) strategies.
  • Evaluate systemic failures and undesired results using Fault Tree Analysis (FTA).
  • Outline using Reliability Block Diagram (RBD) analysis to assess and calculate reliability.
  • Describe methods of plant asset care and reliability improvement.
  • Discuss essential components to developing an appropriate maintenance strategy.
  • Review the impacts of agile manufacturing on safety management.

 

Section 3: Quality
  • Describe process control measures.
  • Outline the Six Sigma approach.
  • Examine the continuous improvement model approach.
  • Discuss the key components of quality assurance
  • Review standard operating procedures and error proofing techniques.

 

Section 4: Costs
  • Examine costing systems.
  • Describe lean manufacturing
  • Outline inventory control systems.
  • Discuss the lifecycle approach.
  • Outline asset management plans.

 

Section 5: Case Studies from High-Reliability Organisations (HROs)
  • Review cases from the following industries:
    • Aviation
    • Oil and Gas
    • Nuclear
    • Process

 

Section 6: Generic Benchmarking
  • Describe the process and benefits of generic benchmarking.
  • Outline and compare the methods of benchmarking.
  • Discuss the practice of learning from failures and worst practices.

 

Section 7: Learning, Unlearning, and Relearning Excellence
  • Describe the benefits of adaptive organisational learning.
  • Explore the risks of routine dynamics and corrective actions.
  • Understand the Decision Making Grid (DMG) model and its use.
  • Develop a framework to assess near-misses and failures.
  • Compare low frequency – high severity and high frequency – high severity incidents and accidents.


Unveiling the Power of HR Assessment: A Comprehensive Guide
Embark on a journey to optimise HR functions with our guide. From understanding HR assessments to implementing strategic changes, discover the key steps, methods, and tools vital for fostering organisational success through effective human resources management.



Course Video