From Ageing Assets to Actionable Priorities

How INEOS is turning asset health assessments into smarter maintenance, reliability and CAPEX decisions

Across asset-intensive industries, technical leaders are facing a familiar but increasingly urgent question: how do you keep ageing plants reliable, safe and competitive when resources are limited and cost pressure is high?

Many production sites in Europe and beyond have been operating for decades. Some installations date back to the 1960s. They have been expanded, modified, acquired, integrated and adapted over time. Their history is often reflected in their asset base: different engineering standards, different documentation quality, different maintenance strategies and different levels of digital maturity.

For maintenance and asset management teams, this creates a complex decision environment. An asset may be 50 years old, but still perform reliably. Another may be much younger, yet pose a higher operational or safety risk due to its criticality, condition, poor maintenance strategy or lack of spare parts. Replacing everything that is old is not realistic. Ignoring ageing risks is not acceptable either.

“An asset may be 40 or 50 years old, but that does not automatically mean it has to be replaced. The real question is where action is truly needed, and which measure is the most cost-effective.”

A Global Asset Base with Different Histories

Toon Van Melckebeke’s perspective is rooted in both production and operational excellence. A civil chemical engineer with a PhD, he began his career at BASF, where he held several production roles, including plant manager. In 2011, the BASF division in which he worked became part of a joint venture with INEOS under the name Styrolution. In 2014, after INEOS acquired BASF’s share, the company became INEOS Styrolution.

From 2011 until 2021, Van Melckebeke served as site director in Antwerp, the largest INEOS Styrolution site, with four worldscale production units. At the end of 2021, he moved into his current role in Operations Excellence. Today, his team supports not only INEOS Styrolution, but also, more recently, INEOS Aromatics. Although both companies remain separate businesses, they are moving towards one organisation from an operations perspective.

The scope is broad. His team supports 15 INEOS Styrolution sites and 5 INEOS Aromatics sites across Europe, Asia and North America. The team includes specialists in maintenance excellence, asset management, project excellence, turnaround excellence, variable cost opimization and OT cybersecurity.

That global scope is a defining factor in the asset health programme. INEOS Styrolution produces styrenic plastics used in a wide range of everyday applications, from packaging to household aplliances, healthcare and toys. INEOS Aromatics mainly produces precursors for PET, used in bottles and textiles, with one of its plants located in Geel, Belgium.

Behind these products lies a complex industrial footprint. Assets have different heritages, since sites have evolved through acquisitions, joint ventures and operational changes. As a result, technical & engineering standards, maintenance approaches and data structures are not always identical.

For Van Melckebeke, this diversity makes a structured approach indispensable: “Our sites have different histories, different backgrounds and different teams. A structured approach helps us to better understand those differences and, where possible, bridge them.”

Why Ageing Assets Have Become a Strategic Issue

Ageing assets are not a new challenge, but the strategic importance of the topic is increasing. Industrial companies are under pressure to maintain high availability, control costs, further improve safety, reduce environmental impact and make better use of capital. At the same time, experienced technical resources are scarce, and maintenance and engineering teams are often stretched across competing priorities.

In that environment, asset replacement decisions require more than intuition or isolated expert judgement. They need a common language for risk, condition and criticality.

At INEOS, the starting point was clear: many plants have been operating for several decades, and some installations date back to the 1960s. But age alone is not a sufficient basis for decision-making. A purely age-based replacement strategy could lead to unnecessary investments, while failing to identify younger but more critical risks.

OEM recommendations can also create pressure to replace equipment after a certain number of years. Yet in practice, equipment may still be in acceptable condition and may not require immediate replacement if well cared for. In such cases, limited CAPEX and engineering capacity may be better used elsewhere.

This is where asset health scoring becomes valuable. By assigning a health score to each asset and combining that score with criticality, INEOS can create a risk ranking across the global asset portfolio. This ranking supports a more objective discussion about priorities.

The outcome is not a simple list of assets to replace. It is a structured basis for choosing between different possible actions. Some assets may indeed require replacement or an upgrade and therefore need to be included in CAPEX plans. Others may require improved inspections, additional measurements, condition monitoring, better documentation or a more robust spare parts strategy.

“Action does not necessarily mean a like-for-like replacement. It can also mean better follow-up, adapted inspection or measurement strategies, condition monitoring, or specific spare parts on which we need to focus,” says Van Melckebeke.

For technical managers, this distinction is crucial. The value of an asset health programme lies not only in identifying where money should be spent, but also in avoiding unnecessary projects. In a resource-constrained environment, preventing the wrong investments is just as important as making the right ones.

From ERP Data to Health Scores

The INEOS approach started with site-level input into a simple tool. Each site was asked to provide equipment data and complete a number of fields for each asset. These included the age of the equipment, the applicable inspection or maintenance strategy, the criticality of the asset and the availability of spare parts.

Because all sites use a common ERP system, much of this information should in principle be available. In reality, however, such exercises often reveal differences in data quality, asset registration and documentation maturity. That is not a failure of the process; it is one of its important findings.

The collected data are processed in a tool that calculates a health score and a risk ranking for each asset. Van Melckebeke emphasises that the tool itself is not overly complex and was developed with own resources. It is based on a number of formulas and designed to be accessible, consistent and usable at scale.

This simplicity is intentional. For a programme covering more than 100,000 assets, consistency and usability are essential. An excessively complex system can become difficult to maintain, explain or apply across different sites. A pragmatic model, supported by expert review, can often create more value than a theoretically perfect but impractical one.

“The methodology is relatively simple, but it provides strong support and is still sufficiently well-founded. It is an accessible and relatively low-cost process that allows you to address many aspects of reliability and maintenance management in a structured way.”

Once the tool has calculated the scores, the experts within Van Melckebeke’s team analyse the results. Together with the site experts they look at which assets require attention, where replacement is truly necessary and where more cost-effective alternatives may be appropriate.

This expert interpretation is essential. Asset health scores provide structure, but they do not replace engineering judgement. The numbers help prioritise the discussion. The decisions still require technical understanding, operational context and collaboration between disciplines.

Moving from Assessment to Action

When Van Melckebeke spoke at the previous edition of the conference, INEOS was still in the assessment phase. Since then, most sites have completed the assessment. The programme has now moved into what he describes as phase two: defining concrete actions, starting with the assets that have the highest risk priority.

This transition from analysis to action is where many asset management programmes succeed or fail. Collecting data and producing rankings is valuable only if the results influence decisions.

At INEOS, the highest-risk assets are reviewed based on the combination of health score and criticality. If an asset is both highly critical and in poor condition, and if replacement (or upgrade) is justified, the action may be translated into the CAPEX plan. In that case, the health assessment supports investment planning and gives decision-makers a clearer rationale for allocating capital.

But replacement is not the default answer. In some cases, the assessment may show that an asset should be monitored more closely rather than replaced immediately. That can lead to improved inspection plans, additional condition monitoring or changes in preventive maintenance strategy. In other cases, the right action may be to improve spare parts availability or update documentation.

This flexibility makes the approach particularly relevant for maintenance and reliability leaders. It connects asset management strategy with practical maintenance decisions. It also helps ensure that CAPEX is reserved for cases where replacement is genuinely the best risk-reduction measure.

“If we can avoid unnecessary projects, we save not only costs, but also people and resources that can then be used for other priorities.”

That point is often underestimated. Every project consumes engineering time, procurement capacity, maintenance planning, contractor management and operational attention. Avoiding a project that does not create sufficient value can free up scarce resources for higher-impact work.

Learning Across Site Boundaries

One of the strengths of a global asset health programme is the ability to compare similar equipment and processes across sites. For INEOS, this is an important part of the value.

When comparable assets exist in different locations, teams can examine how they are managed. One site may have developed a strong inspection strategy. Another may have better condition monitoring in place. A third may have encountered specific failure modes that others can learn from.

By bringing people together around comparable risks, the programme becomes more than a data exercise. It becomes a platform for knowledge sharing and standardisation.

For a global organisation with sites in Europe, Asia and North America, this is not always straightforward. Local teams have their own histories, practices and constraints. But the structured assessment creates a shared language. It allows maintenance, operations, engineering and asset management teams to discuss risk on a more consistent basis.

Van Melckebeke sees this as one of the broader organisational benefits of the programme. It improves the interaction between operations and maintenance and supports a more integrated view of asset performance.

Good cooperation between production and maintenance remains one of the foundations of effective maintenance management. Operations teams understand how equipment behaves in daily production. Maintenance teams know the technical history, failure patterns and practical constraints. Engineering and asset management bring the lifecycle and investment perspective. A structured health assessment helps connect those viewpoints.

Digitalisation Starts with Data Quality

Digitalisation is a central theme in asset performance, but the INEOS experience shows that digital maturity begins with data quality. A global assessment covering more than 100,000 assets generates a large volume of information. Each asset has several parameters linked to it, and the ability to analyse those parameters depends on how well the underlying data are structured.

Modern tools help INEOS perform analyses and comparisons more quickly. They make it possible to work with large datasets, identify patterns and support prioritisation across multiple sites. But the exercise also reveals where the data foundation needs improvement.

Some sites need to register assets more accurately in their databases or ERP systems. Others may need to improve their functional structures or bring documentation up to date. In this sense, data quality is not only an input to the assessment. It can also become one of the actions resulting from it.

For maintenance and asset management professionals, this is an important lesson. Digital tools can accelerate analysis, but they cannot fully compensate for poor asset data. Reliable decisions require reliable information. A health assessment programme can therefore act as a catalyst for improving the asset information backbone of the organisation.

“Improving data quality and data structure is also one of the possible actions that can result from the assessment exercise.”

This makes the programme relevant not only for maintenance and reliability managers, but also for digitalisation leaders, ERP owners and IT/OT teams. Asset performance increasingly depends on the ability to connect technical knowledge with structured, trustworthy data.

The Role of Generative AI

INEOS is also exploring the use of generative AI in this context. Van Melckebeke explains that the company uses licensed tools in a confidential environment, ensuring that data remain within the company.

His assessment of AI is balanced. The technology is developing rapidly, and capabilities are improving in short periods of time. Tasks that were not possible a few months ago may now be feasible. Generative AI can help teams work faster, especially when analysing, summarising or comparing large amounts of information.

At the same time, Van Melckebeke is clear that AI does not remove the need for expert review. Hallucinations may occur less frequently than before, but they cannot be ruled out. In an industrial asset management context, this matters. Decisions can have safety, reliability and financial consequences. Human expertise remains essential.

“You really do work much faster. But experts must continue to review the outcomes. Human expertise remains essential.”

This is a realistic message for technical leaders. AI can support productivity and accelerate analysis, but it must be embedded in a process where domain experts validate the results. The value lies in combining digital speed with engineering judgement.

Building a Ten-Year View

The original ambition of the INEOS programme was to look ten years ahead. What will the different sites need over the next decade? Which assets are likely to require replacement? Where should inspection strategies be strengthened? Which risks need to be addressed first? How should CAPEX plans evolve?

For asset-intensive organisations, this long-term view is increasingly important. Maintenance and asset management teams cannot afford to operate only reactively. Unplanned failures, emergency replacements and last-minute projects are expensive and disruptive. A structured health assessment makes it possible to anticipate needs and align maintenance, reliability and investment planning.

Of course, no assessment can predict the future perfectly. Market conditions change, operating modes evolve, regulations shift and assets may behave differently than expected. But a structured view provides a stronger starting point. It enables better conversations between sites, functions and management levels.

It also helps executives understand the logic behind technical priorities. Instead of isolated requests for replacement or inspection budgets, the organisation can work from a portfolio view of risk and condition.

That is one reason why the programme has attracted interest from plant management and executive leadership. The value is not only technical. It is strategic. It supports better allocation of capital, people and attention.

A Practical Methodology for Asset-Intensive Industries

For participants at the Asset Performance Conference, the appeal of Van Melckebeke’s presentation lies in its practical relevance. Many organisations face the same combination of ageing assets, cost pressure, limited resources and uneven data quality. Many are looking for ways to move from fragmented technical knowledge to structured, evidence-based prioritisation.

The INEOS Styrolution approach offers a concrete example of how to do this at scale. It shows how a company can start with available ERP data, enrich it with site input, calculate asset health scores, combine those scores with criticality and translate the resulting risk ranking into actions.

It also shows that asset management maturity is not only about advanced technology. It is about asking the right questions consistently. Which assets are most critical? What is their condition? What is the current inspection or maintenance strategy? Are spare parts available? Is replacement necessary, or is another action more appropriate? What can sites learn from each other?

For maintenance managers, the approach helps define priorities. For reliability managers, it helps focus attention on the highest risks. For asset managers, it supports lifecycle and CAPEX decisions. For operations leaders, it creates a more transparent basis for discussions with maintenance and engineering. For digitalisation teams, it highlights where data quality and tooling can create value.

Above all, the methodology helps organisations move from scattered information to structured action.

Why This Session Should Be on Your Agenda

Van Melckebeke’s session at the Asset Performance Conference will not be a theoretical presentation about ageing assets. It will be a practical story from a global industrial environment where the asset base is large, diverse and historically complex.

It will address a question that many technical leaders recognise: how do you decide where to act first when everything seems important, budgets are limited and assets are ageing?

The answer, as INEOS demonstrates, lies in combining data, structure and expertise. A health score alone is not enough. Criticality alone is not enough. Age alone is not enough. But together, these elements can support a much more robust view of risk and priority.

For maintenance and asset management professionals, the session promises concrete insights into how a large organisation is turning asset health assessments into action plans, CAPEX input, improved inspection strategies, data improvement initiatives and cross-site learning.

In a time when every maintenance decision and every investment request must be justified, that is exactly the kind of practical, evidence-based perspective the industry needs.

“The approach helps to determine priorities in a structured way and to better substantiate decisions.”

For anyone responsible for reliability, maintenance, asset management, operations excellence or industrial digitalisation, this presentation is a valuable opportunity to see how ageing assets can be managed not as a problem to be feared, but as a portfolio of risks to be understood, prioritised and acted upon.