Executive summary: STO-Bench enables refinery teams to benchmark turnaround scope, direct field labor, cost, and schedule in real time. The tool supports more objective scope decisions, faster scenario evaluation, and more competitive STO outcomes by combining industry data, analytics, and AP-Networks’ proprietary benchmarking methodology.
Background
Shutdowns, Turnarounds and Outages (STOs) are major planned events within refinery maintenance programs. These events require facilities to come offline so teams can complete critical maintenance and execute capital project work. STO performance has a direct impact on event cost, Lost Profit Opportunity (LPO), plant reliability, safety, and overall business delivery. Despite disciplined planning practices, fewer than 5% of global STO events achieve all Business Value Chain targets.
Business Value Diagram
Industry Challenge: Objective Scope Selection & Optimization
Effective scope selection is fundamental to turnaround performance. Scope defines the basis for cost, schedule, field execution, and post-event reliability. However, many organizations continue to face challenges in determining the right maintenance scope and controlling scope growth during execution. This creates a need for a more objective, data-driven approach that allows owners to challenge scope decisions and improve competitiveness.
Scope selection and execution value profile
STO-Bench: Connecting Data to Better Decisions
STO-Bench is a secure, cloud-based benchmarking and analytics platform that helps organizations evaluate turnaround scope, direct field labor hours, costs, and schedules. The platform converts available operating and maintenance data into actionable benchmarks, allowing users to assess multiple scenarios and compare planned events against relevant industry norms. By identifying inefficiencies and outliers, STO-Bench helps organizations optimize budgets and allocate resources more effectively—without compromising safety or quality. Combining data, analytics, and proven industry insights, STO-Bench provides a clear roadmap for achieving and sustaining best-in-class STO results.
Representative benchmark gap example
Methodology
The STO-Bench methodology is powered by AP-Networks’ proprietary Turnaround Scope Index (TSI) Model and Direct Field Labor (DFL) Hours Index Model. These models incorporate asset characteristics such as unit types, unit capacities, and turnaround interval to the maintenance scope in terms of number of pieces of equipment by type opened, inspected, and paired. The DFL Model relates the maintenance scope to the maintenance labor hours. A weighted function is then applied to quantify the amount of scope of a STO, determined by summing the weights multiplied by counts for each type of equipment or work package.
These empirical measures allow companies to understand how much mechanical scope they have relative to their peers, how their estimated labor hours compare to those for similar assets, and if their estimated labor hours are reasonable for the amount of scope. Together, these models allow clients to benchmark:
- Scope relative to turnarounds for comparable assets
- Labor hours relative to turnarounds with similar amounts of scope
- Labor hours relative to turnarounds for comparable assets
TSI and DFL benchmarking methodology
Real-Time Insights
With STO-Bench, clients can automate TSI generation from the desktop and access a practical suite of benchmarking capabilities. The tool supports real-time benchmarking of labor hours, cost, and schedule performance; scenario modelling to evaluate the impact of scope and complexity; and analytics-driven visualization to translate complex data into clear business insights.
These insights help turnaround teams answer critical planning and competitiveness questions, including whether an STO has more or less scope than comparable units, how direct field labor estimates compare with the industry average and range, and where cost or schedule exposure may exist for the units involved.
Illustrative Case Study
In a representative case, a turnaround for a 30,000 BPD FCC and an 8,000 BPD Alky includes 960 work-list items, including 57 fixed-equipment items and 17 rotating-equipment items. The team estimates 300,000 labor hours to execute the planned work. AP-Networks calculates the weighted scope for the event and compares it with the industry average weighted scope for comparable assets. The analysis indicates that the TSI is almost 20% above the norm, with a high mechanical equipment count and an industry-average rotating equipment count.
Case study benchmark output
Key Takeaway
STO-Bench helps reduce subjectivity in turnaround scope selection by giving clients immediate access to scope-driven benchmarks and scenario insights. Rather than waiting for traditional benchmarking studies to be completed, teams can evaluate options, identify outliers, and make faster, evidence-based decisions. The result is a clearer path to more competitive, reliable, and best-in-class STO performance.
About the Author
Daniel Phan is a Regional Manager with Asset Performance Networks Asia Pacific Pte Ltd in Singapore. He has more than 20 years of experience in plant STO and project management consultancy in the oil & gas, petrochemical, maritime industries.
AP-Networks is the trusted leader for improving asset and operational performance in petroleum, chemical, mining, agricultural and other manufacturing companies worldwide. AP-Networks works with the client’s most critical assets—their people, processes, and production facilities—in order to help them achieve safe, competitive, predictable outcomes on their high-risk events—namely capital projects and STO.
Contact: [email protected]
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