Document Management Implementation Helped Improve Asset Information Management at Trinseo

Summary

ARC Advisory Group recently attended Accruent’s Synergy event, where we saw a presentation by Joop Peeters, Program Manager Process Control Automation at Trinseo. Afterwards, we had an exclusive interview with Mr. Peeters to learn more about Trinseo’s Meridian document management implementation, which helped the company improve its asset information management. 

Throughout the lifecycle of an asset – design, build, operate and maintain - hundreds to thousands of people are often involved.  Using outdated documents often leads to rework, project delays, cost overruns, and safety incidents – all which negatively impact the P&L statement and balance sheet.  Effective asset lifecycle information management (ALIM) avoids these problems and improves business performance.

Global Petrochemical Supplier

Trinseo, formed in 2010 from four businesses of The Dow Chemical Company, had an IPO in June of 2014.  Now, Trinseo has two business divisions, Performance Materials (Latex Binders, Synthetic Rubber, and Performance Plastics) and Basic Plastics & Feedstocks.  With 15 manufacturing sites, and 10 research and development facilities globally, Trinseo has a substantial footprint from which to supply its customers globally.

At its Terneuzen site in The Netherlands, Trinseo produces styrene monomer, PC/ABS, ABS, and Latex Binders.  This site operates 7x24x365 with both batch and continuous processes. Trinseo opened an advanced Plastics Research Center there in 2017.

Inconsistent Documents Raise Costs and Delay Projects

Prior to the spin-off from Dow, the Terneuzen site used a Dow internally developed-and-supported system for asset lifecycle information management (ALIM).  After becoming independent, Trinseo needed to move off the Dow system.  The first attempt at an application for information management involved a local system integrator.  Unfortunately, this solution had separate portals for the contractor and Trinseo’s internal organization.  This makes it difficult to keep the documents up-to-date, which leads to the contractor using outdated documents causing rework, cost overruns, and project delays.

One Version of the Truth

Document management among contractors, suppliers, engineering, and others is complicated.  How does one know if they have the most current document?  When considering the various business processes and exception management, getting to “one version of the truth” for all parties becomes complex.  Trinseo decided to use Accruent Meridian, a packaged document management system designed for ALIM.

Trinseo needed to support ALIM across the assets’ lifecycle from an upgrade project through to operations.  Meridian was integrated with the other asset management applications used at the Trinseo development center in Terneuzen.  This involved Bentley for plant design; and SAP for maintenance, including purchasing, inventory management, and work order management.

At the Terneuzen site, Trinseo now has an automated business process for synchronizing documentation changes among the Trinseo engineers and personnel at its various contractors.  This extends into operations and includes operators, process control engineers, and maintenance technicians. 

Everyone authorized to read a specific document sees the current version.  Depending on an individual’s authorization, they can mark up, edit, and/or approve changes.

Benefits with ALIM

As of this writing, the Meridian application has been operational for half a year at Trinseo.  For upgrade projects, everyone involved now has access to the same version of a document.  Benefits include:

• Avoiding conflicts (whose document is correct?)
• Reducing the time spent searching for documents (engineers typically spend 30 percent of their time looking for the current and correct documents)
• Eliminating rework due to a contractor using outdated documents, which improves KPIs for project completion on-time, within budget, and within specifications
• Operators can more easily communicate changes in P&ID drawings to the rest of the organization

• Training is more effective when using the current documents

Lessons Learned

Though the Meridian application was successfully implemented and adopted, Mr. Peeters shared some learnings for a smoother program in the future. 

• Obtain buy-in from your leadership.  Build your business case in a way that gets sustainable executive attention.  In Trinseo’s case, the old structure using Dow’s custom application was no longer available, and a replacement was needed.  The business case must make the connection to senior executives’ KPIs: the P&L statement and balance sheet.
• Before starting implementation, visit a customer that already has a similar solution to better understand commissioning steps, the business processes, and workflow. 
• Provide users with a prototype or screen designs to review and provide feedback.  When the users reviewed the written design document, they had difficulty taking the time to fully read and interpret it.  Technical people can become a bit disconnected from the real users.

Accruent Meridian ALIM

Accruent provides solutions to manage and optimize physical resources for real estate, facilities, and industrial plants.  The company’s recent acquisition of BlueCielo added the Meridian software for engineering asset information management.  It is designed to allow engineering data to become actionable plant information to help keep users informed, compliant, and in control throughout the asset lifecycle. 

Meridian’s ALIM solution supports the creation, exchange, and distribution of technical asset information in all phases of the plant and asset information lifecycle. In addition to document management, Meridian supports project performance management, asset performance management, plus asset and project portfolio management, all elements within the company’s asset lifecycle information model.

Conclusion

During the operation of a plant, new improvements are often identified that can initiate an upgrade.  Thus, an asset’s lifecycle becomes iterative from design, build, operate, maintain and then back again to design.  Documents experience continuous changes during operations and the next upgrade project.  Hundreds to thousands of people can be involved.

So how do you manage authorization to view and/or edit?  Is the document any one person accesses the most current?  Effective ALIM avoids using outdated documents that cause rework, project delays, and cost overruns.  For operations and maintenance, poor document management negatively impacts KPIs like mean time to failure (MTBF) and mean time to repair (MTTR).  To avoid these types of common problems, asset-intensive plants and facilities need an ALIM solution like Accruent Meridian.

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Keywords: Trinseo, Asset Lifecycle Information Management, Accruent, Meridian, ARC Advisory Group.