
RO Consulting was founded in 2016 to serve the petrochemical & energy industries in the pursuit of reliability improvement. Its founder, Tom Ranna, has over 30 years of experience with ExxonMobil in petrochemical manufacturing. His experience with Exxon Chemical and ExxonMobil provides a wealth of practical know how in driving reliability improvements in process manufacturing facilities.
From developing Exxon Chemicals work processes in the 90’s to leading the Baytown Reliability Engineering team in the 2000’s, Tom has both the diverse perspective and expert knowledge to help your facility become world class.
RO Consulting is the culmination of this knowledge. Being “reliable” is so much more than improving up-time. When properly
implemented, these best in class reliability principles can help you to be efficient, predictable, and valuable. RO Consulting is different from others that promise to improve your uptime or decrease your cost, etc. Our promise is simple and unique: we can help you select just the right work the first time! It’s time to improve your profitability. It’s time to get your “Reliability Optimized.”
RO Consulting was founded in 2016 to serve the petrochemical & energy industries in their pursuit of manufacturing excellence. Its founder, Tom Ranna, has over 30 years of experience with ExxonMobil in petrochemical manufacturing. His experience with Exxon Chemical and ExxonMobil provides a wealth of practical know how in driving reliability improvements in process manufacturing facilities. From developing Exxon Chemicals work processes in the 90’s to leading the Baytown Reliability Engineering team in the 2000’s, Tom has both the diverse perspective and expert knowledge to help your facility become world class. RO Consulting is the culmination of this knowledge. Being “reliable” is so much more than improving up-time. When properly implemented, these best in class reliability principles can help you to be more efficient, more predictable, and more valuable. RO Consulting is different from others in that we can help you optimize these dimensions. It’s time to get your “Reliability Optimized.”
RO Consulting specializes in helping clients improve their manufacturing management systems. If you are in the petrochemical industry, regulations have led you to develop management systems to comply with OSHA’s Process Safety Management (PSM) standards. If you are ISO certified, you are quite familiar with management systems and work practices. If you are new to the concept of work processes, just think of a recipe book for the
“how to” of getting work done at the management level. The recipes are “work practices.” The recipe book is the “management system.” A robust management system will drive the organization to define expectations for each work practice such as operating procedures, preventive maintenance, and training just to name a few.
OSHA PSM developed 14 elements to guide manufacturers in developing work practices. Given improvements in process safety
in the US Petrochemical industry over the last 30 years, we must consider giving the OSHA PSM standard its due credit.
OSHA PSM drives manufacturers to build a management system to ensure SAFE operations. RO Consulting can help you extend the same concept to make your facility more PROFITABLE! Using PSM as our guide, ROCo can help your team expand or improve your systems in the following areas:
PSM’S 14 ELEMENTS – (ENSURE SAFE OPERATIONS) | ROCo CAN HELP TO ADD THESE WORK PROCESSES: |
Process Safety Information | |
Process Hazard Analysis | Risk Assessment Tools/Methods - to assess and manage economic hazards |
Operating Procedures | Abnormal Operations Assessment tool - to manage non-routine or abnormal events where procedures will not be available Operating windows with Reliability boundaries and rules of engagement |
Training | Critical Position management process - to have the right people available to train |
Contractors | Maintenance Planning & Scheduling - to be efficient in your use of resources |
Mechanical Integrity | RCM & Risk Based Equipment Strategies – to operate reliability with optimal resourcing |
Hot Work | |
Management of Change (MoC) | Operability & Maintainability MoC checklists - to avoid the “change death spiral” (safe but ill-advised changes driving poor performance & more changes) |
Incident Investigation | Expand the Investigation process to learn from economic loss incidents |
Compliance Audits | Bad Actor & Improvement programs – to improve reliability performance Work Processes Assessments – to sustain “organizational” competence in all the above |
Trade Secrets | |
Employee Participation | Leadership work process – to ensure the right participation of the leaders Annual & 5 year Plan Process – to pull the operating teams together, to build a bottom up plan for the upcoming year, and to provide leadership with the detail needed to set goals and make plans |
Pre-startup Safety Review | Operability & Maintainability checklists to PSSR – to start up new systems reliably |
Emergency Planning & Response | |
CLICK HERE for more information on management systems and how they link to each other.

SMRP’s Solutions magazine publishes Tom Ranna’s article
The “Work” of the Manufacturing Leader