Information Management Strategies for Structural Integrity

www.bentley.com

Information Management Strategies for

Structural IntegrityA Bentley White Paper

Mark Biagi Solution Executive,

Bentley Systems, Inc.

Published: August, 2014

Enterprise Information Strategies for Integrity Management 2

Executive Summary

An effective structural integrity management program is the single most important barrier against catastrophic failure in complex industrial facilities. Sadly, structural failures are still happening all too often, resulting in unplanned shutdowns, loss of production, financial impacts, loss of shareholder confidence and, sadly, even more tragic consequences.

Throughout the energy industries, as inherently dangerous assets get increasingly large and complex, operating in harsh and ecologically sensitive environments, and aging assets’ lifespans are stretched and process conditions are being pushed to their limits, structural integrity envelopes are literally being stretched to their breaking point.

• RusHydro Sayano-Shushenskaya Extensive fatigue damage due to running a high-vibration process and missing bolts. Seventy-four were people killed.

• Chevron Richmond Refinery Integrity process failed to identify wall thinning in insulated pipework. 15,000 people were hospitalized.

• San Bruno Pipeline Poor installation and testing resulted in pipes that are unable to cope with operating pressure. Eight were people killed and 38 homes were destroyed.

For leading owner-operators, taking responsibility for their own integrity management is a top priority. For example, Shell’s simple mission statement is, “Our assets are safe. We know it, and we can show it.” This drives what is arguably the most sophisticated process safety and integrity management program of any operator in the world.

However, many other operators take a different approach, preferring to rely on outsourcing to help keep their assets safe. Certainly, there are many contractors with a rich knowledge of corrosion mechanisms, inspection methods, and products. It is vitally important that the industry promotes competition in finding ever more effective and efficient inspection methods to support integrity management processes.

The flip side, however, is that many specialist vendors that only have part of the solution, along with their own esoteric homegrown software tools, can often introduce risks into the integrity management process. This includes software products written by Ph.D. candidates to perform some specific calculation that only one individual understands. Products that are not in any way integrated into a wider enterprise context result in:

• lack of consistency,

• poor information flows,

• lack of interoperability, and

• dead-end data.

“Structural integrity management is actually

an information technology challenge.”


Conventional asset integrity management methods often involve multiple organizations across distributed enterprises (e.g., in-house, contractors, technicians, specialists) working in disconnected workflows with a wide variety of disparate, technical, esoteric, and non-graphical data sources in multiple specialist software systems that are relevant only to specific sub-asset types. This inconsistency and lack of clarity is a barrier to common understanding, introducing risk and inefficiency.

Bentley’s approach is different. Dedicated to sustaining the world’s infrastructure, Bentley applies sophisticated engineering information management strategies to facilitate a consistent and auditable process of integrity management across distributed enterprises and multiple asset types.

Introduction

Bentley is widely recognized as being the leading vendor of structural engineering design and analysis software with global brand names such as STAAD, RAM, SACS, MOSES, AutoPIPE, and many more.

Bentley is also a leader in software for structural integrity management (also sometimes referred to as mechanical integrity management) with major operators, including Shell, standardizing on Bentley’s strategies for corrosion inspection management of their pressurized systems.

While there are countless companies specializing in technical aspects of structural integrity management (such as non-destructive testing, materials sciences, risk-based inspections, structural analysis) very few of them have the capabilities around engineering information and asset performance management to address the practical challenges of an enterprise-wide approach to structural integrity management.

Bentley’s approach supports the whole integrity management process and the stakeholders involved, such as corrosion specialists, inspection contractors, technicians, installation managers, process engineers and so on. Structural integrity management is a subset of Bentley’s platform for asset performance management.

The fact that structural integrity management is actually an enterprise information technology challenge is precisely what Shell realized and why it bought into Bentley’s approach. That is also the reason why this paper is more information technology (IT) focused than other papers on integrity management.

While Bentley wouldn’t classify itself as a corrosion specialist, it has spent the past 30 years developing advanced IT concepts and technologies to address the specific challenges of designing, building, and maintaining complex infrastructure assets. This gives Bentley the unique capability of considering reliability and integrity across the full lifecycle of infrastructure assets, pushing reliability thinking earlier into the design process, and delivering the information management platforms to support lifecycle operations (see figure below). Bentley’s approach supports the whole integrity management process and the disciplines that support it.


This paper introduces how a number of advanced concepts and proven technologies are applied to improve many common workfl ows and challenges of asset performance management, including:

• information federation

• information mobility

• confi guration management

• immersive interfaces

Bentley’s approach reduces the gap between an engineer’s or a manager’s mental model of a plant, its performance, and its representation in IT systems. This interactive environment facilitates a common platform for the various stakeholders involved in asset integrity management (e.g., corrosion engineering, process engineering, inspection, and RBI analysis) to collaborate effectively in a managed environment, streamlining processes, better supporting existing enterprise systems, providing consistency, and ultimately improving performance and reducing risk.

Introduction to Asset Performance Management

The term asset performance management (APM) is now becoming widely accepted in asset intensive industries. On the one hand, APM describes the subset of an asset management strategy that relates to risk-based and reliability-centered approaches to operations, as opposed to conventional reactive or time-based approaches. On the other hand, APM also defi nes a category of services and software products that can be applied tactically to plan and execute a program of improving asset integrity and reliability.

Push reliability focus earlier in the lifecycle

Manage information to ensure operational readiness and asset performance

Refi ne & Recycle

Operate& Maintain& MaintainCommissionCommissionCommissionConstructConstructConstructDesignPlan

Reliability-centered asset lifecycle.


The principles of APM are also directly aligned with the new ISO 55000 standard, which sets a new benchmark for asset management best practice. This standard, released in January 2014, has gained the attention not only of owners and operators of infrastructure assets, but has also piqued the interest of shareholders, stakeholders, and the insurance industry, which are equally interested to know just how well their assets are being managed. Many infrastructure owner-operators are now engaging consultants to help them understand where on the scale of asset management maturity they currently reside, and what they need to be doing to get measurably closer to ISO 55000. Often the answer comes down to APM.

By defi nition then, APM is a complex discipline that unites and adds value to many existing systems and processes that have become widely accepted across industrial facilities. All owner-operators understand the need and the value of having such tools as enterprise resource planning (ERP), enterprise asset management (EAM), maintenance management system (MMS), condition-based monitoring (CBM), document management systems (DMS), or some other common combination thereof.

So why does the industry need yet another TLA or “three-letter abbreviation” (not “acronym” since acronyms are those abbreviations that spell recognizable words)? The simple answer is that to shift from a reactive or time-based maintenance regime to a risk-based and reliability-centered approach requires the ability to straddle across the conventional boundaries of transactional (e.g., ERP) and time-series (e.g., condition monitoring) systems to drive better decision making.

The fi ve elements of integrity management.

StructuralIntegrity

ManagementManagementManagement

ManagementStrategy

AssetPerformance

RiskAssessment

Asset Context Risk Mitigation


Asset performance management unites the five fundamental elements of an asset management strategy shown in the figure above, namely:

• Management Strategy – What are the business and performance requirements for the asset?

• Asset Context – What and where is the asset?

• Asset Performance – What is the asset’s condition and how is it performing?

• Risk Assessment – How can failure occur? What is the likelihood? What are the consequences?

• Risk Mitigation – How are scheduled and unscheduled maintenance (and incidents) managed?

There are countless reasons why organizations might not be managing their assets effectively, especially not to ISO 55000 standards. Business objectives might have changed over time such that the asset in its present condition is becoming a liability (for example, new emissions legislation changes business objectives). Likewise, the asset context might not be well understood, as an organization may have acquired assets that are poorly documented or that have been modified without updating the engineering information. The asset performance may not be well understood as sources of field information such as inspections or condition monitoring might be ineffective. Risk assessment may not have been adequately carried out to understand all the ways in which failure can occur, which applies not only to failure of physical assets but failure to meet the business objectives. Finally, the risk mitigation methods employed may not adequately address the present condition and potential failure modes.

Notice carefully the figure on page 5 does not mention the word “maintenance.” For many organizations, maintenance is just something that has to be done, like housework. Maintenance tasks are often an aggregation and accumulation of all the individual tasks that are recommended by all the individual vendors of equipment that the asset employs. For an organization to be effective to the standards of ISO 55000, all inspection and maintenance becomes risk mitigation, namely that each inspection and maintenance activity should be aligned with the indicators of specific failure modes and driven by the likelihood and the consequence of those failure modes given the asset’s condition, operating context, and business objectives. This inter-relationship between conflicting requirements and disparate sources of information is fundamental to asset performance management.

Structural Integrity Management – a Subset of APM

Many organizations are recognizing the value of having a consistent risk-based and reliability-centered approach to asset performance management across all their disciplines and asset types, in order that a common language and culture of reliability permeates the whole enterprise.

“For an organization to be effective to the standards of

ISO 55000, all inspection and maintenance becomes

risk mitigation.”


Reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) is the generic strategy that supports asset performance management. In simple terms, RCM is a structured method for considering the ways in which assets can fail to meet the functions for which they are required, and ensuring that maintenance action plans, inspections and other indicators are directly aligned to monitoring these failure modes.

When it comes to structures, the functions of the assets are relatively simple: either support or containment. Asset integrity management, as shown in the fi gure above, is therefore the subset of an overall RCM approach, applying the same process and methodology, but dedicated solely to the functions and functional failures of structures, which generally include:

• Support structures such as bulk loading structures, topsides, decks, pipe-racks, bridges, cranes, hoists, civil structures, vessel supports, jetties, exhaust supports, walkways, jackets, foundations, joints/welds, towers, risers, caissons, subsea structures, wells, blades, and so on.

• Containment structures such as fl owlines, manifolds, pipes, vessels, joints, tanks, valves, joints/welds, pipelines, drains, vents, heat exchanger tubing, corrosion loops, and all other components involved in fl uid transfer and storage.

While the functions of structures are simple, the failure modes can be complex, including:

• Corrosion – degradation of material properties due to reaction with environment

• Erosion – reduction of material thickness due to wear from sand and gravel

• Overloading – structures subjected to loads that exceed design specifi cation

• Creep/fatigue – degradation of material properties due to loading and vibrations

• Fracture – cracks and other defects causing stress concentration

• Resonance/aeroelastic effects – effects of fl uids and wind loading

• Construction quality – including welds and joint integrity

Risk-based approach to structural integrity management.

AssetsFunctions

Functional Failures

Failure Modes

Action Plans

Indicators Inspections

Structural Integrity

Management

Reliability-centeredMaintenance

Maintenance Task AnalysisRisk-based Inspection

CurrentPracticeReview


While the failure modes may be known, monitoring and detection is another challenge because often failure modes take place inside the structures (e.g., wall thinning on the inside of a pipe) or the structures are inaccessible to allow for easy inspection (e.g., buried, subsea, embedded in concrete, etc.).

Therefore owners need to be able to effectively and consistently prioritize when, how, and where inspections need to be carried out and take the appropriate corrective actions.

The real challenge for owner-operators is that, by necessity, they need to outsource much of the activity relating to asset integrity management (specialist inspection methods and specialist analysis techniques). And yet it is the owner-operator that retains ultimate responsibility should disaster strike. The details of impending disaster can be hidden deep within some specialist application or esoteric report. Had it been presented in the right format capable of being understood by management, then that risk could have been mitigated. In the next section we explore these management challenges in more detail.

Structural Integrity Management Processes

Let’s explore the common business processes and information flows that exist around asset integrity management. Whether through formalized and integrated systems, procedures, or informal processes, any company that is serious about managing asset integrity should be able to identify with some of these processes. By considering the common processes and information flows we can begin to understand some of the challenges and where opportunities exist for improvement.

Typical corrosion mechanisms in a pipeline.


This fi gure illustrates the basic information fl ow in an asset integrity management process – namely, how feedback from inspections and condition monitoring drives both physical modifi cations such as engineering changes as well as non-physical modifi cations such as changes to operating practices and inspection intervals.

A more detailed explanation of the processes can be seen in the fi gure above, which can be explained as follows:

• In the center is the fundamental plan, do, check, act cycle of continuous improvement, illustrating the ongoing process of feedback and modifi cation.

• The inner green circle represents the internally managed processes and software systems typically applied to asset integrity management, such as:

» Engineering information management (EIM) for drawings, models, and plant documentation

» Maintenance management system (MMS) for managing work orders

» Data Historian for managing the large volumes of time series data from inspections and condition monitoring

» Enterprise resource planning (ERP) for linking into purchasing, inventory, and spare parts

» Asset performance management (APM) for managing the continuous improvement process and linking the transactional and time-series software systems

• The outer ring represents the externally managed processes and software systems that exist outside of the core asset integrity management system and which are

OperationalOperationalOperationalOperationalOperational

Management SystemsOperational Conditions

Maintenance StrategiesInspection Guidelines

Corrosion ControlProcedures

Non-physical Modifi cationsOperating PracticesMaintenance Plans

Inspection Schedules

Engineering

DesignConstruction

Commissioning

Inspection Methods

Inspection Analyses

Feedback Reports

EngineeringGuidelines

Standards &Specifi cations

Physician Modifi cations

Proposed EngineeringRevisions

Operations

Maintenance Inspections

Information fl ows for integrity management.


commonly required to support each of the plan, do, check, and act cycles, such as:

» Specialist analytical tools such as quantitative risk-based inspection

» Tools to support specialist inspection methods

» Analytical tools for taking bulk inspection results and crunching the numbers

» Engineering design software for modifi cations and redesign

The four cycles, one in each quadrant, represent the following activities:

• Inspection planning – These are the offi ce-based activities relating to work planning and detailed inspection planning, including things such as gathering specifi cations, corrosion loop defi nition, corrosion measurement location defi nition, inspection templates, procedures, regulatory obligations, lock-out/tag-out, spares optimization, work scheduling, inspection contracting, and generation of inspection work packages.

• Inspection methods – This refers to the typically fi eld-based inspection activities, often carried out by specialist contractors using a wide variety of inspection methods that generate large quantities of data (e.g., non-destructive testing, pigging, remotely operated vehicles, tank UT scans, non-intrusive inspections, etc.) and often carried out in remote locations disconnected from the management systems.

• Inspection analyses – This refers to the offi ce-based analysis of results from fi eld inspections, to correlate the fi eld inspection results against expected values, categorizing likelihood and consequence of failure, to track degradation over time, to monitor defects and third-party damage and to support decision making regarding fi tness for service, corrosion allowances, and remaining life.

Detailed information fl ow in an asset integrity management process.

InspectionMethods

InspectionMethods

InspectionAnalyses

InspectionAnalyses

InspectionPlanning

InspectionPlanning

Modifi cation /Redesign

Modifi cation /Redesign

InspectionInspection

NDT, Ultrasonic,Pigging, ROV,

Vibrations, TankUT Scans, NII, etc.

InspectionInspection

Quantitative RBI,InspectionTemplates,

Procedures, etc.

RedesignRedesign

MaintenanceStrategy,

Engineering Systems, etc.

AnalysesAnalyses

Defect Tracking,Statistical

Analysis, Fitnessfor Service, etc.

Plan

Act

Do

Check

InternalSystems

External Systems


• Modification/redesign – This refers to the decision process around modification and redesign of both the physical asset (with everything ranging from design changes, replacements, repairs, insulation, coatings, barriers, inhibitors to complete redesign), taking account of and possible modification to processing conditions (e.g., reducing operating pressure), modifications to the inspection regime (e.g., changing inspection intervals, inspection methods) as well as modifications to the overall integrity management strategy.

Having looked at the common processes and information flows, the next section considers some of the common challenges with integrity management.

Common Asset Integrity Management Challenges

While most owners are undoubtedly taking their asset integrity seriously, few have the kind of management systems to really support their aspirations, or that can provide them with a holistic view of their asset integrity. Many companies are highly reliant on outsourced expertise, on transferring their risks and responsibilities to suppliers, on trusting Ph.D.-written software, and on the tacit knowledge of a few key people that understand their systems. The common risks and inefficiencies in typical asset integrity management processes include:

• Inconsistency across disciplines, assets, and sites – Particularly for larger global operators, due to the often outsourced nature of many of the workflows, the wide range of asset types in multiple locations, specialist departments, and software platforms, very few companies have what could be termed a globally consistent integrity management approach across all their asset types. While individual disciplines or sites might not be particularly concerned how other departments manage their integrity, from an overall management perspective having a consistent and auditable overall indication of asset health is highly desirable (and consistent with ISO 55000).

• Outsourcing risk – Many owners seek to outsource integrity management functions, with a lot of risk being transferred to specialist contractors using esoteric applications and a multitude of inspection methods, and yet it is the owner that must ultimately bear responsibility for any asset failure.

• Interdependence with lack of interconnectedness

» This paper has brought attention to the fact that asset integrity management is a complex process that needs to interpolate between multiple systems, including:

– transactional systems (e.g., ERP, MMS, EIM, etc.)

– time-series data from the field (e.g., operations data, inspections, condition monitoring, etc.)

– disconnected sources of analysis data and results (e.g., RBI analysis, defect tracking software, analytics, etc.), and

– engineering systems (e.g. drawings, models, specs, etc.).

“While most owners are undoubtedly taking their asset integrity seriously,

few have the kind of management systems to really support their

aspirations.”


» While the individual elements might be fine, it is clear that there is a complex level of coordination required to make this all work efficiently and effectively together, to coordinate suppliers and specialist analysis, to turn bulk inspection data into actionable knowledge, to enable decisions, and to manage change in a controlled and auditable way.

» A quick example would be to think about what happens if operations detects a feedstock with higher than expected hydrogen sulphide content. What is the impact on the quantitative RBI, what additional inspections or methods might be required to identify sulphide stress cracking, and what decisions might be required for processing conditions or physical modifications based on present condition? Or, what happens if a regulation changes? How can that be efficiently trickled through into operations such that they remain compliant?

• Risk identification – Much of common asset integrity management comes down to dealing with lagging indicators, i.e., inspection results that show where the problems are. An effective integrity management program requires leading indicators as well. Also, understanding design limits and complex interactions (for example, wall thinning resulting in increased flexibility and therefore joint stress), and having an engineering resource space for design/field performance reconciliation.

• Engineering information – Effective asset integrity management is dependent on accurate as-built/as-maintained engineering records, fabrication records, modifica-tions, and an understanding of how they relate to the original design basis and current regulatory obligations. Yet many assets (even new assets) have insufficient engineering information management processes. In particular, brownfield assets often have very limited records and engineering information to support an integrity management program.

• Communication to generalists – Most of the components of asset integrity management systems are highly specialized, and very few are able to contextualize their information in the form of representations that generalists and managers can understand for clear communication.

Information Strategies for Universal Asset Integrity

As a commercial software company, which for the past 30 years has been dedicated to providing comprehensive solutions for the design, construction, and operations of the world’s building, plant, civil, and geospatial infrastructure, Bentley has developed many capabilities that can be applied to asset integrity management.

In general terms, Bentley Systems applies information mobility to improve asset performance by leveraging information modeling through integrated projects for intelligent infrastructure. Many of these capabilities have not been discussed in the context of asset integrity management until now, so many professionals involved in asset integrity are unlikely to be aware of how these capabilities can and should be applied to their asset integrity management systems.

“Asset integrity management is a complex process that

needs to interpolate between multiple systems.”


One reason for this is that some of these capabilities have emerged from other infrastructure industries. These technologies were developed to address the challenges of one industry and are now being applied to another. While these technologies and capabilities are proven, they are new to asset integrity management. Another reason is that most asset integrity professionals and software vendors are focused on detailed inspections or analysis techniques and do not have the knowledge or interest to handle more fundamental IT concepts.

This section explores these concepts, and explains how they are being applied to what could be termed “universal asset integrity management,” facilitating a consistent and auditable process of integrity management across distributed enterprises and multiple asset types.

• Information federation1

» If a common challenge for asset integrity management is that essential information is distributed all over the place in diverse data sources and formats, then a method is required for effective, effi cient, and controlled sharing and distribution of critical information regardless of the source and format. The conventional solution is to attempt to defi ne everything and create the “mother of all databases” with hard-wired connectivity, but sooner or later this becomes unsustainable (especially for an industry where, as stated earlier, it is essential that vendors innovate new techniques and technologies).

1 Information federation and confi guration management are covered in much more detail in separate white papers. Please see the “References” section at the end of this paper.

Integrity management requires an auditable process across distributed enterprises and multiple asset types.

Requirements

Documents

People

WBS

Organizations

Equipment

ProjectsLocation

DocumentsDocuments

OrganizationsOrganizations

EquipmentEquipment

ProjectsProjects

PeoplePeoplePeoplePeople

WBSWBS

OrganizationsOrganizations

EquipmentEquipment

LocationLocation

RequirementsRequirements


» Bentley offers a federated approach. Instead of creating a monolithic system, Bentley proposes an asset integrity management system that references and maintains the relationships between relevant data objects residing in distributed operational systems. Think of this as the Internet of things applied to this specifi c integrity management problem.

• Confi guration management

» If a common challenge for asset integrity is managing the interdependency of all these disparate information sources, then a method is required for highlighting and managing change. This is exactly the same problem many other industries face where change management is essential, particularly the nuclear power industry.

» Confi guration management is a discipline that emerged from the nuclear power industry to manage the whole change process, ensuring that at all times the physical plant was aligned with the information asset, and these were both aligned with the design basis and regulations governing the asset. Once information is federated and confi guration managed there are a host of additional services that are driven by the confi guration management process including:

– Transmittals, correspondence, reporting, and dashboards

– Contracts administration

A federated approach maintains the relationships between relevant data objects residing in distributed operational systems.

Design Basis / Requirements / Regulations /Contracts / Permits / Licenses

“What is allowed to be there”

Change Management

Information Management

PhysicalConfiguration“What is there”“What we say is there”


– Asset information management

» Bentley provides these capabilities on some of the world’s largest infrastructure programs through a managed services environment.

• Information mobility

» i-models 2 are Bentley’s currency for information exchange to enable information mobility within the federated workflows of asset integrity management. i-models are enablers of information mobility, ensuring the right information in the appropriate format and level of precision can be accessed by the right people at the right time.

» i-models are not only 3D, but also 2D, and 1D (i.e., data). They can have many properties including:

– provenance (i.e., audit trail of what and who has used them)

– portability (i.e., very lightweight, supporting mobile and off-network workflows)

– self-describing (i.e., don’t need the applications that created them to review)

– time-sensitive (i.e., can be imparted with self-destruct rules)

» Free iWare and mobile apps – are how Bentley makes freely available the techniques to generate i-models from non-Bentley software. These include i-model ODBC driver for Windows, i-model driver for Excel, publishing tools for iPad apps on the App Store, Navigator Mobile, and more.

» i-models, supported by managed services configuration control, facilitate the emerging subscription models for information technology as described in industry changing books such as Consumption Economics and B4B (Wood, Hewlin, and Lah, 2011, 2013).

2 i-models are the subject of detailed papers and presentations.

i-models enable information mobility.


Information Strategies Applied to Integrity Management Workfl ows

The following section provides a high-level description of how these enterprise information management strategies from Bentley (namely information federation, confi guration management, and information mobility) can be applied to common integrity management workfl ows, and considers the implications and benefi ts of this approach.

Consider the example in this fi gure that references the common asset integrity management workfl ows described earlier in this paper and that has now been overlaid with simple enhancements using the information management strategies and i-model capabilities, e.g.

i-models applied to the integrity management process.

i-modelInspectionPackages

i-modelInspectionPackagesInspectionPackagesInspection

i-modelAnalysis

Packages

i-modelAnalysis

Packages

i-modelPlanningPackages


i-modelModifi cation

Packages


Packages

InternalSystems

External Systems


i-modelInspectionPackagesInspectionPackagesInspection


Packages

i-modelAnalysis

Packages

2D/3DVisual Planning

DesignManagement

MobileInspections

Fitnessfor Service

ManagedService

Inspection Data

i-modelOverlay

Inspection Data

OverlayOverlayOverlayOverlayInspection Data

i-model


Inspection planning – Using neutral, self-describing i-model packages to combine quantitative risk-based inspection results with plant schematics and models to defi ne corrosion measurement locations and inspection techniques.

For example: Where previously detailed inspection planning might involve marking up printed schematics by hand and circulating photocopied drawings to team members, Bentley now has the ability to support process engineers, corrosion engineers, and inspection technicians to produce and review packaged i-models containing schematics, models, and point clouds with intelligent graphical corrosion loops and corrosion measurement locations, each graphical element linking to data from relevant operational systems, enabling embedded links to engineering specifi cations, purchasing, and logistics, as well as the ability to visualize status based on important attributes such as corrosion rates, alarm states, and so on.

i-models enable immersive asset performance management.i-models enable immersive asset performance management.

i-model packages help to defi ne a better program.

Before Using i-models

• Hand-drawn mark-ups on scanned paper isometrics

After Using i-models

• Packaged drawings, models, point clouds• Graphical corrosion loops and CMLs• Links to inspection and calibration specs• Links to CIMS and other

operational systems


Inspection methods – Moving beyond inspection to “interactive inspection” by using i-models to support the transmittal of inspection packages to contractors with instructions, models, previous results, machine calibration data, and so on, and then supporting the returning fi eld inspection data for detailed analysis.

For example: Previously an inspection technician might receive an isometric marked up by hand showing what is to be inspected, which gives no context about the location, the complexities of the task, and might need to wait until they get into the fi eld to understand the task complexity. Now the inspection technician receives an intelligent i-model that can be viewed on free apps installed on mobile devices, enabling the inspection technician to review the task in detail, get the physical context of the site as well as the historical context of previous inspection results and calibration settings. Furthermore, an i-model overlay fi le can be used to reference actual fi eld inspection results and facilitate getting them back into the integrity management system for analysis and decision making.

Inspection analyses – Using i-models to support the process of analyzing fi eld inspection results. This might include transmitting analysis packages to specialist contractors, containing fi eld inspection results, referencing calibration data, inspection techniques, measurement locations, and facilitating the process of crunching the numbers to make recommendations. This may also include using i-models to take advantage of Bentley CONNECT structural analysis services.

For example: Bentley’s family of analysis products for structural analysis and pipe stress analysis can be used to provide decision support based on the recorded inspection data and modifi ed analytical models. For example, a record of wall thinning on a jacket leg can feed back into a revised structural analysis model that can provide an accurate prediction of reduction in safety factor relative to allowable levels. i-models created from the analytical model can be archived alongside as-built models and compared throughout the lifecycle as revised models are created following each inspection. This provides a visual audit trail of how the structure evolves as corrosion degradation occurs.

i-models take advantage of Bentley CONNECT for optimal data management.

Structural (STAAD)Offshore (SACS, MOSES)

Fitness for Service (FFS)

Pipeline Defect Other

Scenario Services

3rd Party / Home Grown

Analyticali-model


Modification/redesign – As decisions are made about modifications required, i-models support the physical redesign and modification process, packaging details of existing as-built condition to support the full design process.

For example: Even for a simple repair, an i-model package can be sent to the contractor to help them visualize exactly what needs to be done and where. For more complex redesign, i-models help support a wide variety of engineering and plant design systems including Bentley OpenPlant, doing things like performing clash detection on point clouds and other design workflows that are made more complex by the existing plant.

Conclusion

This paper began with the assertion that an effective structural integrity management program is the single most important barrier against catastrophic failure in complex industrial facilities.

For owner-operators to be able to demonstrate exceptional standards of governance and stewardship of their assets across their lifespan, they need a mechanism to coordinate all the disparate sources and systems of asset information, performance data, and risk management to support more informed, consistent, and auditable decision making. This is an information management challenge.

This paper described three enterprise information management strategies (information federation, configuration management, and information mobility) that have been developed to address precisely these complex, distributed, and multi-discipline engineering challenges. Lastly, the paper presented how these techniques can be applied to support common risk-based integrity management workflows.

References

Cleveland, A.B., Jr. “Interoperability Platform: i-models to Unlock the Value of Information Mobility.” March 2013.

Wood, J.B., Hewlin, Todd, and Lah, Thomas. 2011. Consumption Economics: The New Rules of Tech. United States: Point B, Inc.

Wood, J.B., Hewlin, Todd, and Lah, Thomas. 2013. B4B: How Technology and Big Data Are Reinventing the Customer-Supplier Relationship. United States: Point B, Inc.

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© 2014 Bentley Systems Incorporated. Bentley, the ‘B’ logo, STAAD, RAM, SACS, MOSES, AutoPIPE, Navigator Mobile, Bentley CONNECT, MicroStation, and ProjectWise are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated, or one of its direct or indirect wholly-owned subsidiaries. Other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners. CS9859 01/15

Enterprise Information Strategies for Integrity Management

About Bentley Systems

Bentley Systems is the global leader dedicated to providing architects, engineers, geospatial professionals, constructors, and owner-operators with comprehensive software solutions for advancing the design, construction, and operations of infrastructure. Bentley users leverage information mobility across disciplines and throughout the infrastructure lifecycle to deliver better-performing projects and assets. Bentley solutions encompass MicroStation applications for information modeling, ProjectWise collaboration services to deliver integrated projects, and AssetWise operations services to achieve intelligent infrastructure – complemented by worldwide professional services and comprehensive managed services. Founded in 1984, Bentley has more than 3,000 colleagues in over 50 countries, more than $600 million in annual revenues, and since 2006 has invested more than $1 billion in research, development, and acquisitions.

Information Management Strategies for Structural Integrity

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