How Critical Path Thinking Saves Plants Time, Money, and Headaches

In plant operations, not all problems are created equal.

Too often, engineering teams and maintenance staff are forced to juggle a long list of minor issues — without a clear sense of which ones truly matter.

The result? Time, money, and effort spent on the wrong priorities, while the underlying causes of major downtime remain unresolved.

At BIA Engineering Ltd, one of our core strengths is applying critical path thinking to plant optimisation.

We help clients identify and target the issues that have the greatest impact on plant performance — ensuring that time and resources are focused where they deliver the most value.

What Is Critical Path Thinking?

Critical path thinking is about recognising the sequence of systems, components, and processes that have the biggest influence on plant reliability and throughput.

In every plant, there are certain “bottleneck” points — points where failure or inefficiency directly affects the plant’s ability to operate at full capacity.

These points must be the top priority for engineering intervention.

Yet in many plants we visit, the true critical path is poorly understood. This leads to:

• Maintenance chasing low-priority issues

• Operators firefighting symptoms instead of causes

• Engineering budgets spent on the wrong improvements

• Recurring major downtime events

Our Approach

When we are engaged to support a plant, one of our first steps is to map and validate the critical path.

This involves:

• Reviewing plant performance data and downtime history

• Engaging with operations and maintenance staff to understand pain points

• Analysing system interdependencies

• Identifying the true root causes of performance losses

We then prioritise interventions accordingly:

• Hit the top critical path problems first

• Validate that fixes deliver measurable performance improvements

• Move down the priority list systematically

This structured approach delivers far better outcomes than reactive maintenance or scattergun project planning.

Case Example: Energy Recovery Facility

At a recent energy recovery facility project, we identified a sequence of control and instrumentation issues that were repeatedly causing unplanned downtime.

The client’s team had been addressing peripheral faults, while the real bottleneck was an improperly configured control sequence affecting material handling.

By focusing engineering effort on the critical path — and implementing a targeted control system fix — we helped the plant achieve a step change in stability and throughput.

What had been a source of near-nightly downtime became a system that ran consistently for months without issue.

Why It Matters

Every plant has limited engineering time and budget.

Applying critical path thinking ensures that resources are directed where they matter most — delivering the highest impact on reliability and profitability.

At BIA Engineering Ltd, this thinking is built into everything we do.

We don’t chase symptoms — we identify and address the true causes of plant performance issues.

Engineering solutions beyond expectations means helping our clients focus on what truly matters — and delivering results that stand the test of time.