The asset integrity management in oil platforms became very popular from 1990 with the price instability of the oil barrel. Among predictive maintenance and greater control over the industrial assets, it was possible to low the operational and maintenance costs of the elements.
With a great asset integrity management, you can avoid some oil platform accidents. As Rodrigo Castro, an engineer from Forsys Sybsea, quotes:
- Oil or Gas leaking
- Reduction in market shares
- Decrease in the value of shares
- Loss of stakeholder confidence (investors/public)
- And other adverse impacts on: staff safety; installation safety; environment; production and revenue;
Between the most serious accidents of the Oil industry, is the casualty in the Deepwater Horizon platform, at the Gulf of Mexico in April of 2010. During 87 following days, there was a leak of about 4.9 million oil barrels, affecting more than 1.070km of coastline. Therefore, this environmental accident caused great losses for the population in the area, and until today the spending on damages exceeds 368 million dollars, besides the huge amount spent to contain the leak.
In that way, according to Rodrigo Castro:
“This example shows us why the Asset Integrity Management is of paramount importance inside the Oil industry, that should be a dynamic system and constantly updated by the companies in the sector”.¹
But how can you improve the Asset Integrity Management?
Using digital technologies is possible to manage all the industrial process through a single platform, and centralize all the information of the plant, as:
- 3D Models;
- Documents from the engineering phase;
- Technical Drawings;
- Inspection and Maintenance reports;
- CDS (Corrosion Degradation State) levels reports;
- Execution plans;
- Routes for the asset inspection;
Having the predictive maintenance as a base – proven to be the safest, most effective and most cost-effective in the long run – you can achieve an up to 25% budget economy in coating maintenance in 10 years campaigns. With Vidya Software, you can also manage the work orders, teams, and add attributes and documents to specific assets.
Together with these pieces of information on your industrial asset, the software also has an inputs and outputs system. In the input phase, the data are added into the system through IoT (Internet of Things) sensors, or Tablets.
In these field tablets, the operator has access to the available information in the software, as data of the element and customizable checklists. And also can, during the inspection, take photos of the asset status and insert them directly in the software. It offers more precision to the maintenance tasks.
The tablet also has auto-synchronization, so all the pieces of information that are collected in the field can be accessed directly from the software, facilitating the emission of work orders and offering more control for those who do the asset integrity management.
Inputs made, what is the next step?
With the aid of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Predictive Algorithms, the software with the pieces of information from the engineering and material life-cycle information from every element. Combined with the images inputs and real-time information from the industrial asset. Consequently, it can predict what elements may need inspection or maintenance.
You can also do this monitoring from the degradation state of the elements, in the corrosion context, from the CDS, for example. In the software, it’s possible to select the components starting from the attributes connected to them, so it’s possible to generate work orders for all the elements that present a high CDS level, that means, elements that present significant degrees of corrosion. It makes the industrial process more efficient, with the best cost-value and with the lowest risk.
With the Vidya Software, you can have all the crucial information. As a result, your industrial plant doesn’t need unnecessary drydocking. And in addition, it decreases the number of people involved in the inspection process in up to 60%. And up to 30% in maintenance tasks. In short, it increases the safety for those who need to work in person at the plant. In conclusion, that combined with the predictive maintenance, brings you the best cost-value of the market!
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