Long-range planning

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The ten-year plan,
as a model you can question.

Most long-range turnaround plans are a timeline and a cost column, maintained by hand, defended once a year. That is enough to schedule events and nowhere near enough to decide between them. This is the same plan built as a model: what the cycle really costs per year, what a longer interval would cost you, and what the constraint is that actually binds.

Walk your own plan through it See the rest of the platform→

Why it matters here

The decisions with the longest reach get the least analysis.

By the time a turnaround has a scope list, most of its cost is already determined. The interval set it. The decision to run two units together set it. The year it landed in, next to which other event, set it.

Those calls get made years out, usually against a spreadsheet that holds event cost flat and therefore cannot answer the only question worth asking: what does the next year of run time actually cost, and what would it cost to buy more of it?

A plan that can answer that changes which turnarounds you run, not just when you run them.

What it does

Four questions the plan can finally answer.

The headline number

What the plan actually costs per year

Each event's cost amortizes forward across the interval it buys, so a five-year cycle carries its cost over five years rather than landing as a spike in one. That is the same convention your books already use for a deferred turnaround, which means the planning number reconciles with finance instead of arguing with it.

Every event on a site rolls into one levelized annual cost, and every site into the portfolio
Stated in real, reference-year money through published cost indices, so a plan spanning a decade compares like for like
Multi-currency portfolios consolidate at the rate for each year
Capital executed in the window rides as a separate overlay, so it never quietly inflates the turnaround number

The question everyone asks

What a longer interval really costs you

Stretching an interval always looks cheaper if you hold the event cost flat, which is why the spreadsheet version of this question keeps recommending longer runs. It is not true. A longer run accumulates scope, and past a point it buys unplanned downtime. Model both and the curve turns, which means there is an optimum rather than a slope.

Event cost grows with the interval on a fixed-and-variable split you set, rather than being held flat
Reliability exposure past the interval you can defend is priced at the unit's own cost of downtime
The curve finds the economic optimum, then puts it against the technical wall
When the inspection ceiling or catalyst life binds before the economics do, the plan says so plainly and names which one

Working the plan

Scenarios that end in a decision, not a debate

Move an event, re-cost it, change an interval, add or remove one, and the whole model recalculates against a copy of the plan rather than the plan itself. Compare the two side by side on a shared axis. Then, if it is right, promote it.

Completed events are immutable in a scenario, so history cannot be quietly rewritten to make a case
Promotion requires a named decider and the forum that agreed it
The change log writes itself from what actually moved, so the plan carries its own decision record
Advisory checks flag a year over its budget ceiling, two majors too close together, or an interval that has drifted from its target

For the board pack

Cashflow, benchmarks, and the report

The levelized number answers what the run costs per year. Finance also needs to know when the money leaves, and leadership wants to know how the fleet compares to itself. Both come off the same plan.

Spend spread across fiscal years by a spend profile keyed to event complexity
Turnaround cost as a share of asset replacement value, on a basis comparable to the recognized reliability metric and stated as turnaround-only
Cost against complexity-weighted capacity, so a simple site and a complex one can be compared honestly
Every unit left out of a benchmark says why it was left out, rather than silently narrowing the denominator
A board-ready report and workbook generated from the plan, not rebuilt by hand each cycle

The idea worth the picture

Economics propose. Integrity disposes.

Priced properly, the cost of a cycle falls as the interval stretches, flattens, and then climbs again as accumulated scope and unplanned downtime overtake the saving. That turn is the economic optimum.

It is not the answer on its own. The inspection ceiling and catalyst life set a wall, and where the wall sits before the optimum, the wall wins. The plan states which one is binding rather than presenting the cheaper number and leaving you to remember why you cannot have it.

Annualized cost against interval

Held flat, cost only ever falls, so the analysis always recommends a longer run. Priced properly it turns. Here the wall binds before the optimum, so the wall is the answer and the gap between them is what an integrity case would have to buy back.

Illustrative, not actual client data

How the number is built

Every assumption is visible and yours to change.

A planning number nobody can interrogate is worth very little in a room where someone has to defend it. Each input below is stated on the surface that uses it.

The amortization

Cost spread forward across the run each event buys, matching the deferral treatment used in the accounts. Your book method stays a note on the report, never an input to the math.

The escalation

Published national cost indices for construction and maintenance, refreshed automatically, with a forward rate you set per region. Blended indices are supported where one series does not represent your spend.

The reliability view

The rate at which unplanned downtime accumulates past the interval you can defend is an input, not a hidden constant. Set it to zero and the model simply ignores reliability.

The gaps

Where a figure is missing, the plan flags the assumption it made rather than filling it in silently. An event with no cost is reported as an event with no cost.

What comes out of it

Four things you can take into the room.

The plan

Every event across every site on one timeline, with the interval between them and the cost each one carries.

The number

Levelized annual turnaround cost, in real terms, per site and across the portfolio.

The decision record

What changed in the plan, when, who decided it, and in which forum.

The board pack

A generated report and workbook: the plan, the economics, the cashflow, the benchmarks, and the assumptions behind all of it.

Where it sits

One event record

Long-range planning is one capability of STO·PATH, the platform your STO program runs on. The events in this plan are the same events your teams prepare in the work process, raise risks against, and learn from. When a plan changes, the events change with it, because they were never two systems in the first place.

The rest of the platform→Turnaround strategy and premise advisory→

Plan the decade

What is your cycle really costing?

Bring your event history and your intervals. We will build the model with you and show you where the money and the constraint actually are.

Start a conversation

The ten-year plan,as a model you can question.