Basic Care Program for Fertilizer

Operating Facilities

Document Development Guidance

Department: Maintenance
Revision 1 – May 2019

Doc. No: AKH01-GUI-MTC-PHY-004

 Basic Care Program for Fertilizer Operating Facilities

Contents

1 Synopsis .............................................................................................................................................. 2
2 Why develop specific guidelines and procedures ......................................................................... 3
3 Purpose of this document ................................................................................................................. 3
4 Benefits of Basic Care Program....................................................................................................... 3
5 Definition of Basic Care ..................................................................................................................... 4
6 Implementing Basic Care Program.................................................................................................. 5
7 Responsibility ...................................................................................................................................... 7
8 Develop your own organization procedures ................................................................................... 7
9 Definitions ............................................................................................................................................ 7

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 Basic Care Program for Fertilizer Operating Facilities

1 SYNOPSIS
AmmoniaKnowHow.com and UreaKnowHow.com support fertilizer manufacturers by providing essential
services to the industry, using our syngas technologies and scientific knowledge developed in multiple
projects worldwide.

Together we initiate a program to enhance the guidelines and procedures for operation, engineering,
maintenance and process safety in the fertilizer industry utilizing the best practices and standards
available today.

Using knowledge gained from our industry, historic risk registers, lessons learned from projects and from
FIORDA members we are committed to give proper advice to improve safety, reliability and projects
performance of fertilizer plants.

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 Basic Care Program for Fertilizer Operating Facilities

2 WHY DEVELOP SPECIFIC GUIDELINES AND PROCEDURES

Guidelines and Procedures are developed to help staff and management teams run the organization. In
the best use situations, procedures play a strategic role in an organization. They are developed in light of
the mission and objectives of the company and they become the media by which management’s plans,
rules, intents, and business and operation processes become documented and communicated to all staff.

Carefully drafted and standardized guidelines and procedures save the company countless hours of
management time. Guidelines, procedures and employee handbook should be an important part of the
operation. They should be the first thing given to a new employee (either in hard copy or an electronic
version). They should also be easily accessible in their most up-to-date version. Hence it is extremely
important that an organization’s procedures are a “living document” prepared and saved in Microsoft
Word and easily exported into portable versions (like PDF) and made available over the company
network.

3 PURPOSE OF THIS DOCUMENT

The purpose of this document is to provide guidance to Projects and Operating Plants to support the
delivery of basic care for equipment. It is recommended that each facility shall implement basic care
programs on operating facilities.

Basic care refers to the housekeeping, cleaning, informal monitoring, preservation and ad-hoc simple
maintenance of equipment and is typically carried out by operators but can also be completed by
maintenance technicians. Basic care activities will not normally be recorded or scheduled in Maximo, but
they are crucial in supporting the maintenance activities that are scheduled in Maximo which will have been
defined by the equipment reliability strategies.

The purpose of basic care is:

• To prevent equipment deterioration through correct operation, good housekeeping, daily checks
and cleaning of equipment.
• To maintain the basic conditions needed to keep equipment functioning as designed.
• To identify pending equipment failures or equipment deterioration as early as possible.
• Successful implementation of a basic care program has many benefits, including:
• Equipment and systems will operate with higher reliability if they receive basic care.
• Neglected equipment will often display relatively poorer reliability.
• Fully utilizing operators in equipment basic care activities will reduce maintenance cost and
potential future production loss from the equipment.
• Involving a combination of operating and maintenance workforce in the basic care of the
equipment will promote improved morale, ownership, teamwork and proactive behaviors.

4 BENEFITS OF BASIC CARE PROGRAM

The operator is the owner of the equipment and should assume the role of first line of defence against
equipment breakdown and poor performance. By virtue of the fact that the operators are closest to the
equipment at all times, they should detect abnormal conditions that create component degradation well
before damage or failure. Operators should have enhanced skill levels with regard to observing equipment
operation and the interpretation of data, allowing them to optimize the performance of equipment without
damage due to operation outside known constraints.

The routine practice of general equipment basic care and housekeeping has been found to be a cornerstone
of companies and facilities that are best in class in maintaining reliable operations over the life-cycle of
equipment. A basic care program provides better equipment awareness and establishes a more conducive
atmosphere for improving equipment performance.

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 Basic Care Program for Fertilizer Operating Facilities

A minimum amount of basic care:

• Contributes to increased reliability through better pride and attention from operations and
maintenance personnel
• Provides the ability to recognize early warning signs of equipment degradation, such as through
small drips or other gradual condition changes from shift to shift, day to day or month to month.
• Observing and identifying changing conditions for a particular item of equipment is easier if the
equipment is clean.

Basic Care is based on the following principles:

• Basic care and equipment performance monitoring are core activities to the operators and
maintenance technicians.
• To achieve full self-management, operators should take ownership of the equipment and apply
care and attention without supervision.
• Basic care activities are driven by operator and craft teams. The activities are fully supported by
the management of the facility.
• Operator and maintenance basic care activities are coordinated as part of the overall equipment
maintenance strategy.
• Basic care is subject to a continuous improvement process involving monitoring, assessment,
rectification/improvement and review; all aligned with the facility objectives.

5 DEFINITION OF BASIC CARE

Basic care includes:
• Correct operation to prevent or predict failure.
• Correct adjustment to prevent defects, tightening loose connections, adjusting loose hardware.
• Basic housekeeping and cleaning. Management of leaks, seeps, and weeps.
• Greasing, adding lubricant, maintaining lubricators. Maintaining lubricating equipment and
facilities.
• Watch-keeping, e.g. monitoring fluid levels and temperatures.
• Regular and frequent inspection using all five senses to detect flaws during operation.
• Promptly generating corrective maintenance work orders whenever abnormalities are detected.

Basic care and housekeeping is often so basic that much of it is not covered within FMEA type analysis for
how and why failures occur. It is often considered as the very minimum information that everyone should
be aware of and may be included in such things as basic operator training.

Basic care should address such things as:

• Dirty equipment.
• Where dirt from product or the environment may cover gauges and make them unreadable
• Form an insulating layer such that equipment operates at elevated temperatures from loss of
natural cooling.
• Identify or prevent extensive degradation of equipment or oxidation of foundation or containment
bolting, breakage of the grounding wire on equipment foundations and so on.

Housekeeping activities should also include:

• Buildings
• Maintenance workshops
• Lubrication facilities
• Warehouses
• Control rooms

Basic care of repair equipment (vices, drill presses, etc.) and the cleanliness of the working areas can:

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 Basic Care Program for Fertilizer Operating Facilities

• Impact the pride of the technicians

• Improve the quality of the work
• Reduce the chance of contamination of equipment while storing or working on it as well as health
and safety aspects.

6 IMPLEMENTING BASIC CARE PROGRAM

The following steps in Table 1 should be considered when initially implementing a basic care program:

1. Define the basic care policy The basic care policy should:
for the facility and the scope
of the program.
• Promote an organizational culture that allows and supports
basic care.
• Clarify the scope of the basic care program and the activities
included within it.
• Provide an overview of the management responsibilities in
supporting the program and the Operations Department
responsibilities in delivering the program.
• Promote operator ownership of equipment and make
operators aware of the maintenance aspects of their role.

2. Define the responsibilities for The most successful basic care programs are managed by a fully
the basic care program. integrated team.

• Team leaders should promote and support the basic care

practices and participate in area reviews of basic care
standards. Basic care does not just include activities for the
operators. The entire area team should be involved.
• Operators/technicians should understand and agree with the
basic care philosophy and perform the appropriate tasks.
• Reliability/maintenance/rotating equipment engineers or
technicians should provide coaching as needed.
• The maintenance engineer should review the effectiveness
and performance of the basic care program and identify areas
for improvement.
• Team leaders should support basic care and enforce the
completion of the necessary tasks.
Some of the best-in-class operations assign individuals to particular
equipment types or facility areas and they are responsible for the
cleanliness and have ownership of the reliability of this equipment or
systems. Everyone owns a part, including on-site leadership.

3. Define the processes
required for the effective
operation of the basic care
program.
The successful management of a basic care program shall have
agreement on such things as:
• Communication and reporting on the overall program
• Monitoring the effectiveness of the program
• Formal program reviews and continuous improvement cycle
• Defect rectification, i.e. which defects can typically be
addressed by the basic care team and which will need a
corrective work order to be raised in Maximo
• Recording history of defects addressed

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 Basic Care Program for Fertilizer Operating Facilities

4. Identify training requirements Training should be provided to operators/technicians and other area
and develop a training personnel for a consistent, comprehensive program.
program.
In addition to the training, the required tools and materials should be
identified and provided.

5. Carry out initial cleaning and Problems cannot be clearly shown when the workplace is unorganized.
establish the standards. Therefore, the first step of improvement is to clean and organize the
workplace in order to help the team to uncover problems.

The initial cleaning shall establish the basic equipment conditions and
standards of housekeeping and cleanliness to be maintained.

6. Address contamination After the initial cleaning, it is possible to identify any sources of
sources. contamination from leaks, process excess and external contamination.

Action should be taken to eliminate or contain the source.

7. Develop a schedule for
inspections, housekeeping
and cleaning.
A program should be developed such that operators have a defined
schedule for inspections and housekeeping.
The inspections should monitor equipment operation and condition and
may include checking bolt tightness, minor calibrations, adjustments, as
well as process checks of temperature, pressure and flow. The
operators should use sight, smell, sound and touch to detect
abnormalities.

8. Improve the effectiveness of Inspections can be ineffective if there are an excessive number of
inspections by introducing visual indicators (gauges, meters, etc.) or indicators are not clearly
visual controls. labeled or gauges are broken, missing or inoperable.

It may also be unclear what the acceptable performance range is when

looking at indicators.

Actions should be identified to address any shortcomings, such that

reliable inspections can be performed. This may include marking
acceptable ranges on the indicators.

9. Develop a lubrication
schedule and set-up
lubrication equipment and
facilities.
All facilities should have a lubrication schedule that identifies lubrication
points, lubricant type and frequency.
This schedule may need to be enhanced following the activities
completed above in setting-up the basic care program.

A lubrication station should be set-up that contains the necessary

equipment and facilities to enable the lubrication schedule to be
successfully implemented. The lubrication station should utilize
equipment that minimizes the risk of contamination and moisture being
introduced into the lubricating oils and greases.

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 Basic Care Program for Fertilizer Operating Facilities

7 RESPONSIBILITY
Basic Care program is a document owned by the Maintenance department within the organization. They
are responsible to develop the guidelines and philosophy for Projects and Facilities to support the delivery
of company maintenance strategy.

8 DEVELOP YOUR OWN ORG ANIZATION PROCEDURES

Although templates can give you a head start on procedures development, other factors must be
considered as you write your own internal documents.

One factor is your organization’s culture. Organizational attitudes toward procedures determine the
spectrum. On one end of the scale are companies that have a procedure for everything. At the other end
of the spectrum are companies that only have only a few guidelines (only those required by the laws that
are relevant to that company). Most companies fall somewhere in between these two extremes. The
manager writing any guideline needs to understand where on the spectrum the company it falls and how
the policy can be made to fit the organization’s culture to enhance compliance.

Other two factors to be consider when developing guidelines and procedures are the fertilizer technology
that company employs and local and international standards applicable to the industry. Internal standards
and procedures must be developed in line with these factors, being applicable for your own plants and in
line with regulatory requirements.

The last, but not least, factor when developing your own procedures is the best industry practice that you
need to employ. Liaison with your fertilizer association, participation in industry meetings and conferences
and using fertilizer industry consultants can bring a fresh eye, new ideas and enhance the quality of your
own guidelines and procedures.

9 DEFINITIONS

CMMS Computer Maintenance Management System

FMEA Failure Mode and Effects Analysis

HP High Pressure

R&M Reliability & Maintenance

Disclaimer

The information contained in this document is given in good faith and while every care has been taken in preparing these documents,
UreaKnowHow.com and AmmoniaKnowHow.com make no representations and give no warranties of whatever nature in respect of these documents,
including but not limited to the accuracy or completeness of any information, facts and/or opinions contained therein. Both companies, its subsidiaries,
the directors, employees and agents cannot be held liable for the use of and reliance of the opinions, estimates, forecasts and findings in these
documents.

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Fertilizer Industrial Services Ltd
Venture House, Arlington Square
Downshire Way, Bracknell, RG12 1WA, UK
P: + 44 (0) 7494 783 534
Web: www.fertilizer.services
E-mail: dan.cojocaru@fertilizer.services