Prediction of Plant Startup Progress, Duration, and Lost Capacity

Abstract

Startup duration for machine intensive plants using technologically new processes has often been long and unpredictable. Startup is defined here as the time from production of the first good unit until the plant is producing regularly at full capacity. Six year startup duration is not unusual for a plant which may cost from one million to one hundred million dollars. This is a costly problem. Startup of continuous steel casting plants was the particular machine intensive, technologically new process explored in search of a solution. This exploration sought better measures of startup and a fuller understanding of how these measures evolve in order to define and test a better method of predicting startup duration. Two‐thirds of the duration predictions resulting from the new method were accurate within less than six months of startups whose median length was 30 months. In many cases, these predictions would have been much more accurate than the expectations of the managers involved. The development of this useful prediction method and its application proceeded from both production data and theoretical bases.

Citation

Henderson, R. (1981), "Prediction of Plant Startup Progress, Duration, and Lost Capacity", International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 14-28. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb054672