You are Bea Lekuona-Etxabe, 47, plant director at Petrolíticos del Nervión, a mid-size polyolefins producer in Zierbena (Bizkaia). It is Tuesday evening. You have 72 hours to commit on the Friday hot-startup of the rebuilt HDPE Line 3 — or to defer it.
The situation
HDPE Line 3 has been down 14 months for a €38M rebuild — new reactor agitator drive, refurbished extruder train, fully replaced control system. The hot-startup is scheduled for Friday 09:00. The CFO has already pre-marketed €11M of Q3 volume against the line. Sister plants in Tarragona and Sines completed similar rebuilds in the last 18 months; both started up without serious incident.
Yesterday Eider Garmendia, a third-year mechanical engineer, posted on the pre-startup channel that the new agitator motor read 12% above baseline on a 6-hour idle run. The 11-person Startup Readiness Committee discussed the reading this morning and voted 11–0 to proceed. The OEM's standard tolerance is ±15%; the reading is within spec but on the high side. Eider abstained from the vote and asked you privately for "five minutes before Friday."