Energy conservation in lube base oil refinery by a modified failure mode and effects analysis technique

Abstract

In this thesis, Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) technique is modiffed in order use as a tool lube base oil refinery's energy conservation activity. The types of energy consumed in the refinery that are focused in this thesis are steam, electricity and fuel oil. In the modification of FMEA, criteria used in risk priority consideration that are severity of the effect, occurrence of the failure mode and detection ability of the failure mode are modified to be suitable with energy conservation activity. In order to confirm that the modified criteria can be used effectively, the questionnaire technique is used to survey the opinion of the concerning people. In the implementation or the modmed technique, it is found that the risk priority numbers (RPN) of the potential failure modes can be reduced significantly as expectation. But because the plant was shut down due to the finanical problem, all of action planned can not be implemented. However, this modified FMEA is specific for only this lube base oil refinery and may not be able to use in other refineries or other industry plants because each refinery has different process and capacity from others. Then, in order to use this modified technique in other refinery, the criteria used for risk priority number (RPN) must be adjusted.