Did you ever wonder whether Integrity engineers can make a good IDMS platform by themselves? Other than just an RBI spreadsheet or MS Access database? Would that be different to the IT market offers? Triple YES! The below text outlines our new concept for a new level of the software user friendliness. It originates from our many years exposure to integrity engineering workflow and from many attempts to automate it. The AIM data® is online and ready to use.
The Need for the New
During many years of RBI exposure, we observed three major data management gaps:
- As soon as the number of inspection data grows, spreadsheet based analysis capability becomes limited. Just too many numbers, and too much copy-paste work. Spreadsheets work up to a point.
- What if we try building a data base (DB) using office tools? This is a better option, but the automation, scalability and availability are still in question. Specifically for an effective team interaction. Some plant operators even go through the challenge of issuing passes, logins and desks for integrity contractors. And all this is done mainly to enable a direct use of the IT systems. Sounds a bit over-engineered, right?
- How about commercial offers? Their accessibility from site may still be a problem. More importantly, it looks like the cart is driving the horse. I mean that the client site integrity team needs to adapt their RBI methods to the ready-made offers (mostly API 581 based). That is adjusting the integrity management process to a sole method, which may not be an optimal solution for a broad spectrum of practical drivers and constraints.
From these observations, we were brave enough to DIY, and we made it! AIMdata® online IDMS/RBI software is now live, following many months of our hard programming work. Naturally built from scratch, it is well different to what we seen before, and is different in very good senses:
New Look and Feel Solution
Our goal was providing a browser accessible interface to SQL databases of integrity data (plant corrosion readings and much more). This was accompanied by data entry, visualization, approvals and analysis modules. These modules were constructed to facilitate the actual integrity engineering workflow as it is, as integrity engineers wanted to have it done.
Namely, software by others is usually hard-coded to specific engineering standards. In contrast, our solution is extremely flexible with regards to the analysis methods choice (e.g. several engineering standards applicable). As such, AIM data is helpful for a very wide pool of plant integrity problems, and is not necessarily obeying a particular code – this is all up to the user needs.
Remarkably, we realized that ‘IT guys’ major mistake is attempting an automation of everything. We don’t think so. There still should be an engineer’s brain between the chair and the keyboard. We can’t clone human’s brain, but better use it instead.
To meet this criterion, our DB stores RBI results and conclusions, rather than generates them. Numerous calculation aids are provided though, for straight forward basic tasks. In this way, we achieve a symbiosis of computers and humans, with an optimal balance of speed and confidence of the outcomes, specifically:
Flexible RBI engines
- AIM data supports any kind of RBI (and also other analysis methods)
- The RBI results are originated, signed and reported by a person
- Basic treatment of large data amounts is automated as much as it is needed to not compromise the results confidence (‘Computer says No?’ Ours doesn’t make decisions.)
Supported applications are:
- individual corrosion data RBI (wall loss trending and statistical analysis)
- large sample data analysis (Time To Failure analysis etc.)
- online integrity monitoring support and more (Any kind of analysis of any kind of data – does it sound fantastic? Well, we can program this).
One absolutely unique capability is the support of our quantitative CoRBI® method (outlined in this post), and variations thereof. In this way, the AIM data® becomes an interface to our probabilistic integrity assessment solutions.
Some trendy wording nowadays is: digital transformation, paperless reporting, mobile calculator tools). We have it all – as much as it is needed for the integrity engineering workflow, to our vision. Once again, we don’t aim automating everything, but created a robust support for the routine of that everything.
Benefits
From inspection engineer’s or integrity manager’s perspective, you can:
- Pre-build the database for in-situ usage, refer documents, drawings
- Use inspectors to populate inspection data instantly (pre-reporting)
- Visualize/approve/return the submitted readings, incl. messaging
- Review the approved data for RBI-less decisions (priorities, rates)
- Select and submit data to an analyst (RBI, CoRBI, anything else)
- Run some basic calculations (corrosion rate, hazard level, MRWT)
- Perform a ‘full blown’ RBI (or other) assessment, store and report it
- Revisit your risk management loop with a minimal effort (all is there)
- Assign multi-user roles on your choice (who does what at an instance)
- Ask us to customize the data types, calcs and interfaces, if needed
Our software follows the workflow of your asset integrity tasks, and you can change the workflow as required. This is a time and budget savings booster, as we have concluded from our internal application of it.
Way forward
We are happy to give our clients and prospects a demo access for the beginning. Though, a full subscription won’t be expensive either, as we made it all in-house. It was a very cost effective solution for us, and hopefully – will be same for you too.
Write us a line here if you wish to try it out, or see video tours. Welcome!
AIM data® is our trademark. This software interface is our registered design.