Plants Lose $2.3M Per Day During Turnarounds: Here's Where the Money Actually Goes

$2.3 million per day. That is the median cost of unplanned downtime during a major plant turnaround, according to operational data from 127 North American manufacturing and processing facilities tracked over the past 18 months. For a typical mid-size plant running a five-week turnaround, that translates to $80.5 million in direct losses. Most plants absorb it. Some have learned to cut it in half.

The gap between plants that hemorrhage money during turnarounds and those that do not has almost nothing to do with equipment reliability. It is about planning. Specifically, it is about the difference between a turnaround schedule that exists on a Gantt chart and one that is executable on a plant floor.