Digital Tools Preserve Asset Integrity

There is a strong link between preserving asset integrity and profitability. When a storage tank or a pipeline leaks because of undetected corrosion, the asset’s owner must deal with unexpected downtime, cleanup and repair costs, and regulatory reporting. Even if the company responds quickly and effectively, the leak can damage its reputation. When people associate a company with accidents, it becomes difficult to secure contracts, attract skilled workers or receive the permits and rights-of-way required to grow. Moreover, if an integrity failure injures workers, the impact on their lives and families can make the economic costs seem irrelevant. Despite the safety and economic risks associated with poor asset integrity, too many companies manage their inspections, maintenance and repairs with paper-based systems, Excel spreadsheets and aging software. These systems work, but they are cumbersome enough to make it difficult for an organization to identify the assets that most need attention. As pipeline networks expand and facilities age, prioritizing inspections and streamlining maintenance and repairs will become increasingly important. That importance will only grow as experienced inspectors, technicians and administrators retire. With modern software, companies can implement a far more effective asset integrity management strategy. This approach works for everything from in-line inspections and anomaly detection in gathering and transmission pipelines to maintaining the complex webs of instruments, storage vessels and piping at processing plants and refineries. This strategy leverages connected sensors and mobile data entry software to monitor asset integrity more efficiently, but that is only the beginning. For data to be valuable, it must be paired with historical information and stored in a central location for easy retrieval and analysis. Dangerous Data Silos To understand why centralizing data is critical, it helps to look at the prevailing alternative. Midstream companies generally use several information systems to classify and maintain data. From acquisitions, they even may use several solutions and processes for the same types of data across their facilities. This complex approach creates data silos that are difficult to navigate or maintain. As a result, company personnel may struggle to find data when they need it. Process industry employees typically take four hours to retrieve documentation or other information about an asset in a plant. That can tempt busy employees to rely on memory even when a mistake By applying risk models to data from the plant, intelligent asset integrity management platforms can estimate the likelihood and severity of asset integrity issues. This information helps teams quickly address high-risk situations and prioritize more routine work. That can tempt busy employees to rely on memory even when a mistakewill be costly. Most employees get data when they need it, but this can be quite expensive. According to Nielson, a typical process employee spends an average of 50 hours a year searching for documents. In addition to slowing data retrieval, silos reduce information’s usefulness. The same data often is replicated across three or four systems, meaning that if data changes, it needs to be updated in three or four locations. Even when the employee updating the information knows every location, the process can be tedious and error prone. Moreover, such errors may elude detection. Estimates suggest 42% of process employees use incorrect or obsolete information at least once a week. Eventually, employees will notice the data in one silo differs from the data in another and begin to lose trust in both. This distrust can lead to an expensive and dangerous practice where employees concentrate on keeping data within their sphere of influence so they can ensure it is accurate enough for them to do their jobs. Over time, the data for a given system or process may be held only by a few users who may not see how that data relates to other processes or the bigger picture. Meanwhile, other employees who can benefit from the data may not even know it exists. As the employees with the data retire or transfer to new roles, the entire organization may lose that information. That organizational memory loss can have drastic consequences. For example, it can mean forgetting about a change in a pressure vessel’s design during past repairs that narrows its safe operating window or introduces another point that must be inspected and maintained to ensure safety. Unifying Silos To avoid silos, midstream companies should implement a Web-based asset integrity management (AIM) platform and inspection data management system that covers all equipment. This versatile platform will give planners, inspectors and technicians a single point of reference for the up-to-date, trustworthy information they need to maintain asset integrity reliably and affordably. To transform a maze of silos into a central data repository, legacy data must be allocated, sorted, prioritized and imported into the platform from disparate sources. and processes must be put in place to collect, populate and analyze new data. In many applications, integrators must connect the AIM platform with legacy software such as enterprise resource planning, enterprise asset management and computerized maintenance management systems. To keep silos from returning, data entered or updated in any of these systems must automatically move to the central database so it remains accurate in all of them. This automation can require custom interfaces. The entire implementation process can take anywhere from one month to half a year depending on the facility. The benefits almost always justify the effort, even for smaller companies. One of the biggest benefits a modern AIM platform offers is helping organizations focus their limited manpower and resources on assets that pose the greatest risk. The platform includes equipment specific risk models that consume realtime data to predict assets’ conditions and identify ones with the greatest integrity risks, as well as the potential severity of any integrity losses. Based on this information, platforms can highlight assets most likely to cause a significant incident so they can be addressed quickly. Through automation, modern platforms can suggest inspection and repair schedules that maximize efficiency. These scheduling tools assist with both risk-based inspections and routine maintenance. The best platforms monitor assets in something close to real time and send alerts to the appropriate people if one approaches or exceeds safety limits. These alerts often come with recommended actions, as well as the conditions created for the affected assets. They give the responsible employees everything they need to take corrective action immediately and minimize the chance of downtime. Geospatial Referencing To simplify planning, inspection and maintenance, AIM platforms should use geospatial indexes, which tie information about an asset to its location rather than a unique identification. With this approach, workers in search of information no longer must know precisely what something is and how that asset type is identified in a relational database or filing system. If they know where something is, important information about it is only a click or a tap away. Geospatially indexed data can be used to tie information from a given part or piece of equipment visually. Picture an inspector who pulls up a piping and instrument diagram on a tablet. Instead of merely showing the location of each pipe and vessel, the diagram can display current temperatures in each vessel, making it easier to spot anomalies. 3-D databases are required for augmented reality systems, which use glasses or headsets to show relevant information within workers’ normal field of view. These systems can ensure inspectors check every asset that needs it and guide Gas Gathering technicians through performing and verifying a repair. As they build a 3-D database, companies lay the groundwork for a 3-D model or digital twin of their asset that can simplify planning and communication. For example, a planner may overlay the position of proposed scaffolding with the inspection schedule to ensure any areas the scaffolding will obstruct have been properly inspected before it is built. Over time, faster access to information and smarter planning add up to huge productivity gains and safer employees. These gains are difficult to quantify, but they are significant and widely recognized. In fact, I have never seen a company that has digitized AIM revert to its old processes. Last year accelerated digital AIM’s growth by turning contactless operations, social distancing and automation into an urgent strategic imperative. As asset integrity teams who might have otherwise waited to climb the digital learning curve moved data from filing cabinets, digital silos and cumbersome spreadsheets to secure clouds, they discovered tremendous time savings. I hope others join them. More efficient asset integrity management can help midstream companies reduce risk, improve safety and protect the environment. It also lets them redeploy limited financial and human resources so they can maximize their growth during times of plenty and innovate when margins thin.?