Enhancing Integrity Management of Aging Assets Using Risk-Based Methodologies to Improve Cost, Safety, and Productivity

Managing assets, in any industry, optimally has become crucial for organizations to stay competitive in today’s global market. Industries are on the edge of a new trend in asset efficiency improvement, with the current pressures in realizing optimal value from their assets. Many plants assets are at risk of failure from age-related damage mechanisms requiring mitigation actions. These assets cannot be replaced and need to have their useful life extended. Therefore, the common challenge is to maintain production capability in a cost-effective way while preserving the integrity of those assets. Management of aging requires a good understanding of the condition of safety-critical elements, how that condition is changing over time, and carrying out maintenance in a timely manner to minimize the risk of major accidents. There is evidence that installation age is not necessarily a reliable indicator of condition or likelihood of hydrocarbon leak frequency. Once the symptoms of aging are understood and detected from inspection, a decision can be made on how to proceed. The options can include putting together a case to justify continued service, re-rating, repair, or scrapping the equipment. In addition to the engineering aspects, there are important managerial issues that should also be considered. The company culture and defined roles and responsibilities are discussed in relation to managing equipment. Management of life extension requires the advanced, and continuing, assessment of safety-critical elements to ensure they are fit for purpose, and safe to use when required to operate longer than their anticipated service.

Asset Integrity Management (AIM) is the ability of an asset to perform its required function effectively and efficiently whilst protecting health, safety, and the environment. Decisions within AIM regarding monitoring/inspection, repair, maintenance, and replacement have traditionally been based on a range of practices including the prescriptive time-based approach, rule-based approach, condition-based approach, or reactive maintenance. Risk-based decision supporting tools are being recently developed in response to the industry’s need for optimum management of assets. However, there are increasing concerns over time spent and the complexity of implementation stages and resource planning. This is also influenced by the selection of a Risk-Based Inspection (RBI) methodology which is a predecessor for other decisions like software, resource requirements, data collation efforts, and more. In addition, rapid growth of digitalization has complicated inspection and maintenance work processes. Inspection data can be associated with design, operational condition, and mitigation records in a central repository using Inspection Database Management Systems (IDMS). RBI methodologies are using this data for recommending sound maintenance decisions. Computerized maintenance management allows timely execution of the risk mitigation transferred from RBI and IDMS. The integration of IDMS, RBI, and CMMs simplifies the achievement of the adopted risk management, creating a more efficient work management process.

In this work, the factors to consider when managing equipment containing hazardous fluids or pressure, and to help those responsible for equipment to understand and assess the risks of accumulated damage and deterioration are to be discussed and a digital framework for implementing AIM methodologies using risk-based decision-making tools is demonstrated.