Track 1 Session 3

1:00 to 2:00 p.m. Wednesday April 7, 2010

The Value Improvement Reliability Engineer Practice Methodology: Case Study in a Brazilian Refinery Plant

The Value Improvement Practices (VIPs) are applied in Petrobras enterprises in order to increase the plant’s efficiency. Many VIPs with different focuses regarding specific subjects, such as risk analysis and maintenance, have been implemented to improve a plant’s performance before the operation phase. One of the most important VIPs involves system and equipment reliability to aid in improvements in order for the plant to achieve better performance. Therefore many reliability subjects, such as life cycle analysis, RAM analysis, reliability growth, FMEA and RCM, are carried out during the project phase and depend on project platform requirements. The advantages of such a methodology are to define stock level, equipment reliability requirements and, in some cases, project modifications to increase or maintain plant performance (availability and efficiency). A case study will be carried out in order to show the methodology application and advantages. This is a real case of such application that was required to define the impact on system availability when some equipment was removed and what would be the reliability requirements.

Key Words: Value Improvement Reliability Engineer Practice Methodology, Life Cycle Analysis, RAM analysis, Sensitivity Analysis

Eduardo Calixto

Petrobras REMAN

Brazil