Description of the Site: The Dartmouth Refinery, part of the Exxon/Mobil group, situated on Halifax Harbor, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada processes 85,000 bbl/day of crude oil.

Nature of the Opportunity: Dartmouth had a need to improve the refinery reliability and increase production while lowering the cost of maintenance.

What We're Doing: Our initial work included assessing the operation and maintenance practices and procedures utilized in the refinery to support equipment operation, maintenance and reliability. Part of this initial work included identification of gaps in their practices and procedures which needed to be addressed to allow Dartmouth to reach its production and financial goals.

After the assessment a design team was formed from Imperial Oil and SAMI personnel to design a new work management system for Dartmouth. The new work management system addressed the existing gaps and was designed to utilize their in house CMMS system in improving production, maintenance effectiveness and efficiency, and overall equipment reliability. Implementation of the new work management system at Dartmouth was performed with SAMI personnel support.

Results: Initial benefits gained during the work management design process were to increase the production rate 6.25% from a rate of 80,000 bbls/day to a rate of 85,000 bbls/day. Significant benefits in the production and maintenance areas were obtained after implementation of Stage One of the SAMI Asset Healthcare Triangle and the new work management process. In 2002 this site was ranked by Solomon Associates as a Fourth Quartile Performer.  In 2004 this site had a Solomon ranking of First Quartile.