Shutdowns

A shutdown is a planned window when a site, a line or a building is stopped so the work that can only be done while it is off can be done together. The Shutdowns screens gather that work into one package and answer the two questions that matter months ahead: will the parts, permits and people be ready, and does the work fit the window. Open them from Work → Shutdowns. You need View shutdowns, their readiness and their critical path.

If you don’t see this in your navigation, your administrator can switch the module on under Administration → Modules, or it may not be included in your plan.

The shutdown register, warning that a planned shutdown will not fit its window

Kinds of shutdown

Kind	What it is
Shutdown	A planned stop you chose — a weekend, a line stop
Turnaround	The annual one the year’s deferred work is saved for
Outage	Somebody else’s window, given to you rather than chosen — a utility outage, a customer’s stop

The register

The register leads with the claim that is most expensive to be wrong about: whether the work fits the window. A shutdown whose longest chain of work is longer than the closure raises a red banner at the top — “A planned shutdown will not fit the window it is planned into” — naming each one, with how many hours of work sit in how long a window. “Something has to come out of the package, run in parallel, or the window has to grow.”

Figure	Meaning
planned	Shutdowns not yet completed or cancelled
overrunning	Of those, how many will not fit their window (red)
jobs blocked	Work orders in live shutdowns that cannot start until something arrives (amber)

Column	Meaning
Code	The shutdown’s code
Shutdown	Its name, with the site and line beneath
Status	Planning, Scope frozen, In progress, Completed or Cancelled
Window	When the plant stops, how many hours the window is, and when it ends
Jobs	Work orders finished, out of all in the package
Readiness	The percentage of requirements in hand, with N blocked beside it when jobs are held up — 92% is reassuring until you learn the missing 8% is the permit
Critical path	The length of the longest chain of dependent work, in red with over the window when it is longer than the window

Rows of shutdowns that will not fit are red; rows with blocked jobs are amber. Click a row to open the shutdown.

Planning a shutdown

Plan a shutdown on the register, or New → Shutdown in the header, opens the form. You need Plan a shutdown or turnaround. “The window the site stops in. What comes off line and which jobs are in it are settled on the shutdown itself.”

Field	What it means	Notes
Code	A short reference, such as SD-2026-03	Required. “How three other systems will refer to it” — permits, the capacity plan and your documents all show it
Name	What the shutdown is, in words	Required
Kind	Shutdown, Turnaround or Outage	Defaults to Shutdown
Where	The site that stops, or a line or building within it	Required. Narrow it to a line or building where the closure is smaller than the site
Stops at	When the plant stops	Required, with a time
Back on line	When it is due back	Required, with a time. Must be after Stops at
What, and why this window	What is coming off line, and what production have been promised	Optional

Plan it creates the shutdown in Planning and opens it.

The shutdown

A shutdown's readiness, with the warning that the work does not fit the window

The header shows the code, the name, the status, the kind, overruns the window when the work does not fit, and N late when work was added after the scope froze. The summary line shows how ready it is, how many jobs blocked, jobs finished out of all, the critical path and the window in hours.

Actions

Button	What it does	Who can do it
Document	Produces a document from one of your templates — a shutdown pack, or the report the morning after	Attach files and photographs
Edit the plan	Changes the Name, Kind, Stops at, Back on line and What, and why this window. Not offered once the shutdown is completed or cancelled	Edit a shutdown, its scope, its windows and its milestones
Freeze scope	Fixes the work package. Anything added afterwards is recorded as a late addition. A scope freezes once, and only while the shutdown is in Planning with work in its package	Freeze a shutdown’s scope, fixing what is in the package
Plant has stopped	Records that the shutdown has started — Really stopped is stamped — and moves it to In progress	Declare a shutdown started, finished or cancelled
Back on line	Records that it has finished — Really back is stamped — and moves it to Completed	As above
Call it off	Cancels the shutdown. You must give a reason: “Other departments have planned around this window. The reason is what they will read.”	As above
Archive	Removes the shutdown from the register. Not offered while it is in progress	Archive shutdowns

Status flow

Planning ──Freeze scope──→ Scope frozen ──Plant has stopped──→ In progress ──Back on line──→ Completed
   └──────────────Plant has stopped──────────────↗
Planning, Scope frozen or In progress ──Call it off──→ Cancelled

Freezing is not required before the plant stops, but a frozen scope is what lets the shutdown show which work arrived late.

The plan

Below every tab, The plan shows Site, Production line, Stops at, Back on line, Really stopped, Really back, Scope froze, Manager and the description.

Readiness

The first tab, because it is the question asked every morning for three months. It gives the overall percentage and how many jobs cannot start until something arrives, then one line per kind of requirement — Parts, Tools, Permits, Vendors, Labour, Skills, Certifications, Documents — with its percentage, how many are answered out of how many, and how many jobs each is holding up. When the work does not fit, a banner says so in numbers: “The longest chain of work in the package is 18.0 h, and the closure is 16 h. Every job on the critical path has no slack at all, so any one of them slipping moves the end.” The figures come from the requirements on each work order in the package — the same ones the work order’s own Readiness tab shows.

Work package

The work orders in the shutdown. The tab shows how many.

Column	Meaning
Job	The work order number, as a link
Title	With the asset beneath
Status	The work order’s status
Permit	in force, not in force, none issued, or a dash when none is needed
Outstanding	Requirements still outstanding, out of all
Window	Which work window the job runs in — choose one from the list, or Not planned yet
Sequencing	”waits on N · blocks M” — the dependencies between jobs

Work added after the scope froze is marked late.

Action	What it does
Add work	Opens Add work to the package: search jobs and pick the ones to add. The result says how many were added, and how many were already in another shutdown
Take out of the package	Removes a job from the shutdown. The job itself is untouched

Adding and removing work needs Add work to a shutdown, and take it out again.

Critical path

The order the work has to happen in. From the start of the package draws the jobs as a chain, from the dependencies recorded on each work order: jobs on the path have no slack, and others show how much slack they have (“2.0 h slack”). Slack on every job lists, for each job, how long it Takes (from its estimated duration, or “no estimate”), when it Starts, at the earliest, and its Slack (“none” for jobs on the path). Any job on the path slipping moves the end of the shutdown. Dependencies are recorded on the work orders, not drawn here. To change the path, change the dependencies on the jobs, or the estimates.

Scope

What comes off line — the assets and systems isolated for the shutdown. Each line shows what is Isolated (an asset, or a description), a Note, the Isolation reference (the lock-out reference the field matches) and how much Work planned touches it. Add a line (and Edit on a line) asks for an Asset, Or describe it when it is not an asset — such as a section of pipework — and the Isolation reference. Remove takes a line off.

Windows

Work windows — the periods within the shutdown when particular work is possible, such as “Vessel open”, “Switchroom dead” or “Full site down”. With no windows, there is one window for the whole closure.

Column	Meaning
Window	What is available
Open from / Until	When
Hours	How long
Jobs	How many jobs are planned into it

Add a window (and Edit) asks What is available, Open from, Until (which must be after the start) and What is and is not possible in it. Removing a window leaves its jobs with no window, and the screen says how many.

Milestones

The gates the shutdown has to pass on the way — for example scope frozen, materials on site, permits issued, isolation complete, back on line.

Column	Meaning
Gate	The milestone
Due	When it has to be met
Met	When it was met
Status	PENDING, MET, MISSED or CANCELLED
Note	What is outstanding or what happened

Add a gate (and Edit a gate) asks for the Gate, Due, Status, Met (shown when the status is MET — “Leave it blank and it is recorded as now”) and a Note. Scope, windows and milestones are edited by people with Edit a shutdown, its scope, its windows and its milestones.

Shutdowns elsewhere

Permits can cover a whole shutdown instead of one job; every job in the package then shows that permit on its Readiness tab, marked “via the shutdown”. See Permits.
The capacity plan marks days a site is on shutdown, because a site that is down cannot absorb ordinary work.

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Kinds of shutdown

The register

Planning a shutdown