How is the staffing for instrument operators in chemical plants determined?
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As the title suggests: Our factory is facing a severe shortage of instrumentation personnel. We would like to discuss with our management the possibility of hiring more such staff. Are there any relevant guidelines, regulations, or other reference documents available? Is it calculated based on the number of devices, the tasks to be performed, and the number of control systems? Is it still the leader who decides?
Our factory assigns people based on the number of control points
How to calculate it? How many points are there, and how many instrument technicians are needed to be assigned? There seems to be a SHRS001 standard, but I can’t find it!
I remember that the design institute had a table showing the number of staff required in the preliminary design phase; you can contact the institute to find out what criteria were used.
Adding more staff? If the leadership doesn’t mind it, then it’s good enough that you guys in the maintenance crew are considered a burden or a load. In our factory, the head is replaced every three years (appointed by the Beijing headquarters). Everyone who takes over says that those in charge of instrument maintenance, electrical work, and pump repair are a burden and a load, claiming that such people waste a lot of the company’s salary funds. Great efforts are made to promote the socialization of maintenance services, but it turns out to be a disappointment: after maintenance work is outsourced in new areas, the maintenance staff ignore you; at worst they just earn their money and leave, and you’re left to figure things out on your own. This puts the managers in an awkward position. It’s really absurd to have such partial outsourcing – half of the work is done by unskilled people from within the company.
I don’t know about anything else, but our processing capacity is 8 million. . . The four teams are responsible for maintaining their respective equipment; each team has 20 members, and together with administrative staff and engineering installation personnel, the total number is around 110 people
The daily maintenance of instruments can be outsourced to the manufacturer; only a small number of staff need to be employed in-house
This is mainly for reference purposes, using similar companies as a benchmark~~~~ Generally, if the planned workforce is 40 people, a attendance rate of 60~70% is considered good~~~
Over 100 people – that’s quite a number. It’s not clear whether they are full-time instrument technicians or all the personnel responsible for the maintenance of mechanical, electrical, and instrumentation systems. Our plant is divided into a new area and an old area. The new area is outsourced; it includes one set for delayed coking, one set for sulfur recovery from acidic water, one set for hydroprocessing of gasoline and diesel, and one set for hydrogen production, in addition to facilities for power generation and storage. There are 15 field instrument technicians assigned to this area. In the old area of the plant, there are two sets for vacuum distillation, one set for hydroprocessing, two sets for producing lubricating oil, three sets for producing modified asphalt, three heat transfer oil furnaces, and 6 plate and frame filters. For power generation, storage, and transportation purposes, there are 10 field instrument technicians (one of whom is at home due to giving birth), 1 engineer of level B, 1 shift supervisor, 1 record keeper, 1 warehouse manager, and 1 person dedicated to party building work – also 15 people in total, but only 9 of them actually carry out the actual work. There are 2 people on night shifts at night, and only 7 people who work during the day.
1. This makes the factory managers think that instrument technicians are just idle people. 2. As for contract manufacturers, electrical and mechanical aspects are fine, but there are too many different types of instruments; there are over 20 different models of flow meters alone, and there are even more instrument manufacturers – it’s not practical to rely on them. 3. Unless the device can be stopped at any time or the instruments are damaged without affecting overall operation, there are no reliable instrument repair technicians; if the instruments break down at night, it will be too late to get help from the instrument supplier by then. 4. Instrument technicians are not just that – many factories treat them as generalists who should be able to do everything, and contractors will ignore them. 5. Judging from the results of outsourcing maintenance to external parties, it is not as effective as doing it in-house.
How many people are needed is definitely decided by the management; using any design institute standards as a basis to argue is nothing but challenging the management’s decision. Outsourcing maintenance means that managers are trying to get rid of responsibilities and don’t want to deal with too many extra matters. As for money, it will only lead to greater expenses; there’s no need to explain further, as everyone understands this