Challenge

At a large crude oil refinery, a Program Management Office (PMO) was established to regain control over a backlog of asset integrity, reliability, maintenance, and operational issues. The PMO provided structure, prioritization, and oversight, enabling the site to navigate an overwhelming volume of activities needed to both sustain daily operations and address critical challenges.

Solution

The site needed a team to help them drive multiple integrity, reliability and margin improvement projects all while operating the plant. A member of Valdes Architecture & Engineering (Valdes) staff organized a PMO team to manage these projects. The PMO process allowed the team to take the time to listen to all key groups: operators, technicians, inspectors, supervisors, engineers, superintendents, managers, etc. and to centrally manage the listening, the development of the solutions and the implementation.

The PMO was led by a senior, well-respected leader from the facility, who understood the facility well, was strategic and was open to change. The rest of the PMO organization also included respected leaders from the facility, a couple of high potential individuals for training purposes and the PMO team providing fresh pair of eyes with benchmarking information from competitors and sister organizations.

The PMO team wrote and implemented a charter to clearly define the objectives, the role of the PMO steering committee, individual roles and responsibilities, meeting cadence, communications plan, scope, deliverables, KPIs, risks and mitigation actions, milestones, and key deadlines. It also identified opportunities at site level, not department or process unit level to avoid silos. It documented the integrity, reliability, availability and cost goal bridges or gaps together with obstacles and actions to address them. And the PMO clearly tracked the spending and the benefits to keep the support alive.

Impact

By implementing a dedicated PMO, the refinery transformed a fragmented and overwhelming backlog into a coordinated, results-driven improvement program. The PMO provided clear governance, strategic prioritization, and cross-functional alignment—ensuring asset integrity, reliability, and margin improvement projects were executed without compromising day-to-day operations. This approach not only delivered sustainable results and sitewide ownership of improvement initiatives but also accelerated performance gains.

Services

Project Management

Maintenance, Reliability & Asset Integrity