Catch Up on Maintenance During Plant Closures

How Do You Plan a Maintenance Shutdown? 10 Steps

A maintenance closure, also called a plant shutdown, is a planned stretch when production stops and the maintenance team works on equipment that normally stays in service. Done well, it clears the jobs that need equipment down, and the plant restarts with fewer surprises. These ten steps cover the planning from the first meeting to the restart, and where each one usually goes wrong.

1. When Should You Start Planning the Closure?

Problem: The closure date sits on the calendar, but planning starts a week out. By then, the parts are on backorder and the contractors have other jobs.

Impact: The crew shows up on day one without the parts, the outside help, or a finished list, and the jobs that needed the line down wait for the next closure. MSC Industrial’s shutdown preparation article, citing Jason Beck, former director of life sciences for Evergreen EDC, says the work begins long before a shutdown, with planning, coordination among departments, and procurement of needed parts and supplies.^[1]

Fix: Start when the closure date is set. Name one person to own the plan. Put the key dates for the work list, parts, contractors, and sign-off on a shared calendar.

2. Which Backlog Jobs Belong in the Closure?

Problem: The team treats the closure as a chance to do everything. The list grows past what the crew can finish.

Impact: Jobs that don’t need the equipment down crowd out jobs that do. Crews finish the easy work and leave the hard work for the next window.

Fix: Start with jobs that need equipment shut off, such as lockout-heavy repairs, internal inspections, and preventive maintenance on equipment that normally runs. MSC suggests it may help to “review the maintenance backlog, equipment history, predictive maintenance records and files from previous shutdowns” to find what the closure must cover.^[1] Then rank the jobs by priority and cut the list to what the crew can finish.

3. How Do You Build the Work List and Keep It From Growing?

Problem: Requests keep arriving after the list is set. Each one looks small.

Impact: The crew size and the window stay fixed while the list grows. Late additions are usually the least prepared jobs, and they push planned work past the end of the closure. In Reliabilityweb, Jason Weis lists unmanaged scope growth among the problems that hurt a maintenance schedule, because growing jobs push out other scheduled work.^[3]

Fix: Steve Hall, writing in Plant Engineering, says “A checklist with every piece of equipment involved in the outage should be available for review.”^[2] List every asset in the closure and have operations and maintenance review it for gaps. Set a cutoff date. After the cutoff, a new request has to trade places with a job already on the list, or wait for the next window.

4. Are the Work Packages Ready Before the Closure Starts?

Problem: Jobs go on the list with a title and nothing else. There are no steps, no crew size, and no time estimate.

Impact: Crews plan on the fly during the closure and stop to ask questions. Weis lists low quality work packages among the problems that hurt the maintenance schedule, where “Work plans lack scope detail and accuracy for tasks, duration and assigned crafts.”^[3]

Fix: For each job, write down the steps, the crafts, the time, and the parts. Attach that plan to the work order so the crew reads the same record the planner built. Your work order management routine decides where that detail lives.

5. Are the Parts on Site Before the Closure Starts?

Problem: The crew opens the equipment and finds out a part isn’t in the building.

Impact: The job stays open when the closure ends. Hall says to “Ensure that all replacement parts, accessories and rebuilt equipment are in stock before the shutdown.”^[2] David Berger, a contributing editor at Plant Services, quoted in the MSC article, adds that availability and premium pricing can be an issue for resources such as special equipment and spare parts.^[1]

Fix: Check each work package against your stock well ahead of the date. Order what’s missing. Weis describes a step where procurement “verifies all required materials are on-site and properly kitted.”^[3] Stage a kit for each job so the crew doesn’t hunt for parts during the closure.

6. How Do You Book Contractors for a Closure Window?

Problem: Every plant wants outside help over the same holiday and summer weeks.

Impact: Berger, quoted by MSC, says, “Hiring contractors during peak vacation periods also is problematic.”^[1] A late booking can leave you short-handed on the day the line stops.

Fix: Book early. Give contractors the work package before they arrive. Tell them your lockout and PPE rules up front, and decide who escorts them and who signs off their finished work.

7. How Do You Keep Lockout and Safety Under Control With More People on Site?

Problem: A closure brings extra crews, open equipment, and people working on unfamiliar jobs.

Impact: Hall says “A zero-tolerance LOTO and PPE policy should be enforced.”^[2] OSHA’s lockout/tagout standard requires the employer to establish an energy control program, and it requires training for each authorized employee.^[4]

Fix: Review the lockout and PPE rules at the start of every shift. Confirm that every person on the job, contractors included, knows your site’s procedure before they touch equipment.

8. Who Keeps the Closure on Schedule Day to Day?

Problem: The plan looks fine on paper. During the closure, nobody tracks what’s done, and the delays show up at the end.

Impact: Weis lists “Equipment not ready for maintenance at the scheduled time” among the problems that hurt a maintenance schedule.^[3] One late handover or one unfinished job can push back every job behind it.

Fix: Hold a short check-in at the start and end of each day. Update each work order’s status as the work moves. Tell operations early when a job slips, and agree on who decides what drops off the list.

9. How Do You Check New and Rebuilt Equipment Before Restart?

Problem: The crew finishes late and the pressure to restart builds. Nobody runs the final checks.

Impact: Hall warns, “If installed imprecisely, failure begins at startup,” and he says the plant team “should give everything one more look before restarting the plant or process.”^[2]

Fix: Build a restart checklist before the closure begins. MSC advises making sure machine guards removed for maintenance go back on, and checking whether new or overhauled equipment can be locked out.^[1] Have maintenance and operations sign off together.

10. What Do You Do With Unfinished Work and What You Learned?

Problem: The closure ends and the team goes back to the daily rush. Unfinished jobs and new findings stay in someone’s notebook.

Impact: The next closure starts from scratch. MSC suggests reviewing files from previous shutdowns before a new one.^[1] Those files only help if someone wrote them down.

Fix: Soon after restart, return unfinished jobs to the backlog with updated notes. Record what you found in each asset’s history in your asset management records. Then hold a short review: what finished, what didn’t, and why.

What Should a Closure Plan Cover? (6 Stages)

Use this as a starting point. Adjust the stages to the size of your closure and the way your site works.

How Do You Know the Closure Paid Off?

Write down a few numbers before the closure, then compare them afterward. These signals show whether the plan worked:

• Jobs finished: How many jobs on the list the crew completed, compared with how many you planned
• Late additions: How many jobs entered the list after the cutoff
• Waiting time: How often crews stopped for a missing part, a missing permit, or equipment that wasn’t released
• Restart problems: Whether new failures or leaks showed up in the first days after restart
• Backlog: Whether the backlog of jobs that need equipment down got shorter

One closure gives you one data point. A pattern across several closures tells you more.

How Does a CMMS Help You Plan a Closure?

A closure list is only as good as the records behind it. With consistent use of CMMS software, open work orders, priorities, and asset history stay in one place. You can then build the list from the same records your crews use the rest of the year. Capabilities to look for:

• Open work order lists you can sort and filter by priority
• Asset history, so you can review past repairs before you open the equipment
• Work orders that hold the steps, crafts, and parts for each job
• Status updates that crews can enter as the work happens
• Unfinished work that stays visible after the closure ends

In eWorkOrders, you configure the priority levels your team agreed on. Asset records hold repair history, so you can check what already happened on a piece of equipment when you build the closure list.

Frequently Asked Questions

Closure planning doesn’t replace your site’s safety procedures. Follow your lockout/tagout program and your emergency procedures at all times, and stop work if you see a hazard.