petrochemical industry – extending value from existing assets

Geopolitical turbulence combined with the pressure of transitioning away from fossil fuels is creating unprecedented uncertainty for petrochemical companies globally. Strategic decisions are required that will influence the profitability of businesses for years, even decades to come.

Yet alongside vital decisions regarding future low carbon options and exploring raw material innovation, companies must also urgently review current operational processes.

This is an unpredictable market, inspired not only by changing demand patterns but also a US administration creating volatility over trade and decarbonisation policy. To counter this volatility and safeguard margins, petrochemical companies require new levels of efficiency and productivity as well as operational agility.

To date, most investment has been focused on manufacturing productivity gains, leveraging automation and digital transformation to improve operational production processes.

Legacy processes using forklift trucks can require 45 minutes or more to load each pallet. As a result, loading docks cannot cope with additional volume, creating both bottlenecks in the enhanced production process and adding safety risks for workers responsible for loading trailers. Additional product throughput, combined with the pressure to manually load ever greater volumes puts pressure on space, raising the risk of accidents, especially with dangerous forklift trucks.

For the vast majority of sites, the existing buildings simply cannot be expanded to add loading docks.  And while sites can operate 24x7, using as many as five different shifts, recruiting and retaining these staff remains a serious challenge. Staff shortages continue, while companies are also facing the additional cost of employment.

With the move to a greenfield site not an option, petrochemical companies need to make better use of the existing facility. Having enhanced manufacturing processes, the focus has now turned to the enormous loading productivity gains that can be achieved through automated loading.

Replacing existing slow, expensive and high-risk manual loading with automated solutions transforms efficiency, improves worker safety and reduces costs. Trailer loading can be achieved within minutes, with minimal loading staff – and no forklift truck drivers. This improves product throughput, improving end-to-end supply chain performance. The eradication of forklift trucks not only reduces driver costs but also maintenance costs, adding further bottom line benefits.

Automation in loading is a strategic move to ensure predictable, high-throughput operations that reduce bottlenecks and maximise asset utilisation. Better control, certainty and reducing the risk of product damage during the loading and unloading processes is transformative.

The additional inbound and outbound loading certainty can feed into greater productivity throughout the manufacturing process, ensuring companies maximise the investment in manufacturing digital transformation.

Automatic loading solutions can also include buffering to further optimise outbound material flow. Using buffering, the loading process is executed on a load-by-load basis, automatically taking production unit loads and efficiently preparing optimal truckloads across one or multiple loading bays.

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