The complex and increasingly regulated operation of today’s oil and gas assets represents a management challenge unequaled in industrial history. This has arisen from an aggregation of factors that are challenging individually; the combination can be overwhelming. Challenges include increasingly complex engineering to recover hard-to-reach reserves; increasing complexity to meet ever-growing demand; and increasingly stringent regulatory, environmental, and safety restrictions. There is a bewildering variety of asset information in different, incompatible forms, which is made even more complex by the aging of physical assets and by the challenge of a rapidly aging workforce.

It is easy to fall into the trap of tackling these different factors in isolation, partly to try to achieve some quick wins and partly because tackling the overall problem can be perceived as too difficult. But uncoordinated efforts will not achieve the necessary objective that society and the regulators demand of the industry – safe, efficient, and environmentally responsible operations.

Laser Modeller/Brownfield asset capture is effective and affordable through the use of high-precision 3-D laser surveying, which accurately captures as-built status, adding intelligent asset information to the survey data. (Images courtesy of AVEVA Inc.)

An overarching strategy to address these complex and often conflicting demands is essential. Solutions are known under several different names, of which operations integrity management (OIM) strategy is perhaps the most widely used and accepted.

An OIM strategy can be successful only if it can bring under control the vast quantity of disparate information associated with an asset and the environment within which it operates. OIM strategies can be useful to the following areas of asset management:

•Handover and operational readiness;

•Operations and maintenance;

•In-plant engineering; and

• HSE and regulatory compliance.

Handover and operational readiness

Typically, by the time handover to the owner-operator (OO) occurs, the contractor/EPC has amassed a huge quantity of information associated with the asset. This information is essential to demonstrate that the asset is fit-for-purpose, meets the design criteria, is in conformance with the regulatory requirements, and can be started and operated safely. This data comes in many different forms from multiple and often divergent and potentially conflicting sources, all with different levels of quality and completeness.

Today it is customary for data to be handed over in a variety of formats. It is typically impossible to verify the data’s completeness, accuracy, and adherence to standards or compliance with regulatory requirements.

Operational readiness enables OOs to address their operations and operational integrity challenges, in other words, a comprehensive asset information capability and a “dashboard” that enables OOs to effectively, manage, and exploit their database. From these follows a third requirement that leads directly into operations: effective change management.

Effective change management can only be achieved by means of a single central resource that stores and manages all information, regardless of originating application or data source. This central resource, or “digital information hub,” is the key to an effective OIM strategy.

Operations and maintenance

Effective asset maintenance delivers maximum sustained throughput for minimum sustained cost. At its best, it combines a preventive strategy to maximize performance and reliability with effective reactive processes to handle the inevitable unexpected problems that occur in every facility. Correctly implemented, asset management policies can deliver significant measurable returns such as reduced downtime, reduced cost, increased safety, and extended service life.

Like all critical operational processes, maintenance requires “as built” information – showing the real, up-to-date state of the asset. Relying on original “as designed” information in a 40-year old facility is simply inviting trouble.

Recent technology developments have made brownfield asset capture effective and affordable through the use of high-precision 3-D laser surveying, which accurately captures as-built status, and software that can cost-effectively add intelligent asset information to the survey data.

Research and experience demonstrate the integration of maintenance management, resource planning, and materials management. Applied on a platform of integrated, validated, and accessible information, these provide a powerful and essential environment for maintenance regimes and plans, work order scheduling, resource allocation, materials tracking, and spares and inspection management. The benefits are not only economic in terms of reducing operating costs but can lead to life extension (deferred replacement costs), reduced operating risks (lowered insurance premiums and avoided uninsurable losses), and reduced costs of regulatory compliance, providing a path to easier and more complete audit reporting.

OIM requires an information management system that provides easy access and navigation across all available information sources.

Asset engineering

Executing major asset-change projects while maintaining throughput and operational safety presents a major challenge to operations and engineering teams. The difficulty is rooted in the need to have ready access to complete and accurate asset information down to the lowest level of detail coupled with the ability to view this information in ways that relate to the different and often conflicting requirements of the project.

Today the industry is accustomed to using spreadsheet functions such as charts and pivot tables to draw meaningful inferences from confusing arrays of raw data. Facility engineers need similar capabilities to make sense of the vastly more extensive and complex digital assets they deal with on a daily basis. It is necessary for different disciplines to view the information in different ways for purposes such as project justification, scope definition, price estimates, calculations, planning, procurement, logistics, project supervision, and documentation. It is essential that this information is easy to share and communicate across the enterprise and between the various operational handover events.

Failure to achieve effective use of asset information regularly leads to cost overruns and avoidable downtime; in extreme cases, it can lead to avoidable accidents. The predominant root cause of incidents is inadequate information. Whether the driver is safety or efficiency, the industry simply cannot afford to neglect its information assets.

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It is important to be aware of related tasks when embarking on a management of change task. Technology is available to simplify the change management of all data, including tags, documents, equipment, and attributes.

HSE and regulatory compliance

Most operations processes and activities are potentially hazardous, which is why the industry has extensive controls, working practices, and regulations to minimize risk and to protect the safety, security, and health of employees and the public. While such risk-reducers evolve continuously as industry, technology, and regulations advance, it is always true that “doing it right” embraces “doing it safely.” This, as well as the associated economics, makes OIM a number one priority for OOs. Demonstrating this integrity in the form of key performance indicators and audit reporting is essential to ensure that the required level of compliance is maintained.

Just as operations and maintenance procedures need integrated information, so too do the activities of risk assessments, monitoring, auditing, checking, and applying for certification. Only when the traditional silos of information can be effectively integrated can they provide support for safe working practices, enable generation of comprehensive regulatory compliance reports, and enable a holistic and corporate-wide approach to HSE.

Achieving the return

OIM is not just another industry acronym; it is the key to the future of the processing industries. Effective OIM relies on the long-overdue harnessing of all resources into a common and collaborative information hub. Where previously this may not have been technically or economically feasible, powerful and affordable technologies are changing the face of the industry. Given the potential consequences, businesses can no longer afford to be without an OIM strategy. The strategy can deliver the required level of operational integrity and is a prerequisite to the safe and efficient continued operations of our global plant assets.