Turnarounds and brownfield tie-ins
Turnaround management where close-out happens inside the window.
A shutdown gives you a fixed number of days on a live plant and no room for reconciliation afterwards. Deskely lets the scope be structured before the window opens, executed on tablets during it, and certified before the plant is handed back.
- Duration
- Days, not months
- Plant state
- Live and adjacent
- Execution
- Offline on tablets
- Close-out
- Before hand-back
Choose your project type
The problem
The window is the whole constraint, and paperwork eats it.
A turnaround is planned for eighteen months and executed in fourteen to twenty-five days. Every hour of the window is costed against lost production, which means the work that happens inside it has to be execution — not deciding what the scope is, not building forms, not working out who signs.
What usually happens instead is that the register is still being assembled while the plant is already down. Scopes arrive late from inspection findings, tie-in packages are tracked on a separate sheet, and the punch item raised on day two is on a clipboard nobody reconciles until the week after start-up.
Then the plant is handed back and the documentation trails it by a month. For work that sat next to live hydrocarbons, that gap between the job and its evidence is exactly what the operator's post-turnaround audit finds first.
What the window actually holds
The numbers a turnaround manager is already carrying in their head.
14–25
days in a typical unit turnaround window
vs 18+ months of planning
1,000+
contractor personnel through the gate at peak
on a mid-size unit
30–40%
of scope that is discovery work, not planned
found once vessels are opened
0
days of slack for reconciling paper after hand-back
Before the window
Structure the scope while the plant is still running.
Everything that can be decided in advance should be. Tie-in points, replaced spools, new instruments and modified subsystems are set up as their own subsystems with their ITR sets attached weeks before the shutdown starts, so the register is complete on day zero rather than day ten.
Where the scope comes from a drawing package rather than a list, the parser drafts the tag register from the tie-in drawings and line lists for an engineer to review — which matters most when a scope arrives three weeks before the window and there is no senior engineer free to type it.
Late additions from inspection findings, opened vessels or NDT results are added as subsystems in the same structure rather than as an appendix, so the growth work is visible in the same readiness view as the planned scope, not buried in a change log.
The certification ladder
The same gates as a greenfield scope, met in days instead of months.
A turnaround does not get a shortcut on the ladder — it gets less time to climb it, which is exactly why the gate has to be enforced by data rather than by memory.
- 01
Isolation verified
Isolation certificate signed against the P&ID, LOTO applied and tagged at the point of work.
Permit issuer and area authority
- 02
Mechanical completion (tie-in)
All A and B records signed for the modified subsystem, static test packs closed, no open Category A punch.
Contractor QA/QC lead and client construction rep
- 03
Pressure test accepted
Often a third-party or client inspection authority, separate from the contractor.
Hydro or pneumatic test witnessed and recorded against the line or vessel tag.
Independent inspector
- 04
RFSU (re-instatement)
Commissioning checks complete, de-isolation sequence followed, no blocking punch beneath the subsystem.
Commissioning lead and operations shift supervisor
- 05
Unit hand-back
All subsystems on the unit at RFSU, outstanding Category B punch carried with an owner and a date.
Turnaround manager and plant manager
During the window
Signed at the tag on the day, not typed up on the Monday after.
Field crews work from tablets at the tag. A record is completed where the work happened, a punch item is raised with a photograph the moment it is found, and both are signed by the person who did the job with the time they did it.
Connectivity inside a unit is unreliable and the app does not assume it. Records are captured offline and synchronise when the device is back in coverage, keeping the original signature time rather than the sync time — which matters when a regulator later asks what time a valve was actually re-instated.
Because progress is derived from those signatures, the 06:00 shift handover meeting reads a live number. What is outstanding on the tie-in scope is a query against the register, not a reconstruction from three supervisors' notebooks.
What blows the window
Four failure modes that turn a planned shutdown into an extended one.
Scope creep from opened equipment
A vessel is opened, inspection finds unplanned corrosion, and the repair scope arrives with no ITR set, no subsystem and no owner — tracked on a side sheet until it collides with the critical path.
New scope is entered as a subsystem in the live register the moment it is identified, inheriting the same certification ladder as planned work.
Permit-to-work bottleneck
Multiple contractors queue for the same isolation or the same physical space, and the permit office becomes the schedule constraint rather than the work itself.
Work packs, isolation lists and ITR sets are issued together so a crew's readiness to start is visible before they queue at the permit desk.
Punch reconciled after re-instatement
Punch raised during execution sits on paper until after systems are re-instated, so a Category A item is discovered only once the unit is already being brought back up.
Punch is raised against the tag at the point of discovery and blocks RFSU automatically until it is closed or formally deferred.
Evidence assembled after start-up
The dossier is built retrospectively from scanned test packs once the plant is running again, delaying the close-out report the operator needs for the next campaign.
The certificate package exports per subsystem directly from the signed record set, available the day the plant restarts.
What the close-out report is built from
The records a plant manager checks before signing the unit back to operations.
A turnaround's close-out report is only as fast as the records feeding it. These six are the ones most often chased after re-instatement rather than captured during the work, and each is tied to the tag it belongs to as it is signed.
Blind list and reinstatement register
Every blind installed for the shutdown has been removed and the line restored to its normal configuration
Closed at de-isolation, before re-instatement
Positive material identification record
Replaced spools and fittings match the specified alloy before the line is pressurised
During pipe fit-up, ahead of hydrotest
Hydrotest and leak-test pack
A repaired or new line holds pressure at the code-required test value
After tie-in welding, before re-instatement
Isolation certificate close-out
The isolation applied for the work has been formally cancelled and the boundary returned to service
At de-isolation, ahead of RFSU
NDT and radiography report
Tie-in welds meet the acceptance criteria before the line is put back into service
Immediately after welding, before hydrotest
Punch clearance record
No Category A item remains open beneath the subsystem being re-instated
Reviewed at RFSU
Hand-back
The certificate package exists when the plant restarts.
Mechanical completion for a tie-in subsystem is gated the same way as on a greenfield scope: no unsigned A record beneath it, no open Category A punch. The difference is only that the gate is met in days rather than months.
Category B items that will genuinely be closed during normal operations are carried with an owner and a date instead of being written off at hand-back, which is what makes the outstanding list credible to the operating organisation receiving it.
The dossier for the shutdown scope exports per subsystem in the operator's retention structure, with every signature, photograph and timestamp preserved — available the day the plant comes back up rather than a month later.
Who owns what during the shutdown
Six parties on the same permit board, reading the same register.
Turnaround manager
Overall schedule, critical path and go/no-go for unit re-instatement.
Signs
Live subsystem readiness view across the whole unit.
Contractor supervisor
Crew allocation, work pack execution and punch clearance for their scope.
Signs
Signed ITRs and closed punch items filtered to their subsystems.
Client construction rep
Verifying mechanical completion before commissioning takes the subsystem.
Signs
Reviewed and countersigned B records.
Permit issuer / area authority
Isolation validity and simultaneous work clearance at the tag.
Signs
Isolation certificate linked to the active permit and subsystem.
Independent inspector
Pressure test witnessing and code compliance sign-off.
Signs
Test certificate attached to the line or vessel tag record.
Operations shift supervisor
De-isolation sequence and acceptance of the unit back into operation.
Signs
RFSU certificate with no open Category A punch beneath it.
How it runs
How a turnaround is set up in Deskely.
The aim is that nothing structural happens during the window. Everything that can be built in advance is built in advance.
- 01
Build subsystems in advance
Tie-in points, replaced equipment and modified loops are created as subsystems with ITR sets attached before the plant comes down.
- 02
Draft late scope from drawings
Scope arriving close to the window is parsed from tie-in drawings and line lists into a draft register for an engineer to review rather than typed from scratch.
- 03
Assign crews and signature rights
Contractors and inspection parties are scoped to their own packages, so nobody is waiting on a single administrator to update the master file.
- 04
Execute offline at the tag
Records, punch and photographs are captured on tablets inside the unit with no connectivity assumed, synchronising when the device is back in coverage.
- 05
Close punch during the window
Category A items are visible against the certificate they block, so the crew working the last shift knows exactly what stands between the scope and hand-back.
- 06
Issue and export before restart
Certificates are issued from the signed records and the dossier is exported per subsystem, so documentation does not trail the plant back into service.
FAQ
Questions about Turnarounds scopes.
Keep reading
Oil and gas commissioning
The full sector view: certification ladder, preservation, handover and the terminology behind them.
Read morePunch lists
Category A and B punch raised at the tag, carried with an owner, and blocking certification where it should.
Read moreCertificates
MC, RFSU and handover certificates issued from signed records, with the gates enforced by the data.
Read moreOther oil and gas scopes: LNG trains and gas processing, FPSO and floating production, Fixed platforms and jackets, Subsea tie-backs, Refineries and petrochemical, Pipelines and compressor stations, Terminals, tank farms and jetties, Hydrogen, ammonia and carbon capture, Decommissioning and late life.
