iPME - RBI where Rubber Meets Road

Risk-Based Inspection (RBI) is a powerful methodology for optimizing inspection planning, but it's true value lies in how it’s implemented, planned, and continually improved. At MI Group, we focus on a systematic approach coined "iPME", that takes RBI theory and couples it with experienced inspection personnel culminating in real-world efficiency and safety. Here is a breakdown of our approach, segmented into four critical phases: Implement, Plan, Mitigate, and Evergreen.

1. Implement: Laying the Foundation for Risk. This phase is all about gathering comprehensive, high-quality data to accurately assess potential risks. This is the bedrock of your RBI program. We focus on acquiring data related to:

• Consequence Determination:

  • Unit margins and equipment downtimes, and their impact on throughput/margin.

  • Potential health and safety, environmental costs, and community/reputation impact.

  • A note on consequence: elements informing the risk assessment should be controlled by the management of change (MOC) process, and risk assessment personnel must be informed of changes to adjust consequence accordingly.

• Process and Design Conditions: Operating temperature and pressure, as well as design specifications.

• Crude Slate: Understanding the normal feed and potential corrosive elements.

• Known Process Operating Conditions: Utilizing accepted practices like 90th percentile trending and process excursion modeling.

• Process Stream Composition: Refining Heat Material Balance or Stream Table data through interaction with process engineering.

• Materials of Construction: Verifying material types, grades, and understanding alloying elements' effect on corrosion mitigation.

• Management of Change (MOC) Activities: Knowing what changes (e.g., material changes, Design and Operating condition changes and chemical injections) were implemented since the last assessment to apply them to potential damage mechanism susceptibility and IOWs.

• Inspection History: Using past damage detection and quantification results to inform assumptions in damage susceptibility and evaluate known damage certainty versus modeled potential.

• Damage Mechanism Identification: A corrosion Subject Matter Expert (SME), knowledgeable about the process, performs the initial assessment, which is then applied at the RBI calculator level.

• Integrity Operating Window (IOW) / Material Operating Envelope (MOE): A study should be performed systematically during implementation and validated during evergreening to identify critical controls for damage mitigation and set acceptable thresholds for parameters used in the damage mechanism assessment.

The results of this comprehensive analysis are then used to compute a risk level in accordance with the facility program.

2. Plan: Designing the Inspection Strategy. This phase leverages the calculated risk level to systematically prioritize the equipment review and determine the most effective inspection strategy. Key steps include:

• Prioritization: The risk level is used to prioritize a systematic review of the equipment.

• Configuration Review: The equipment design and configuration are reviewed again to understand its real-world disposition, which informs the selection of applicable inspection technologies.

• Detection Method & Coverage: A systematic approach is employed to determine the highest confidence detection method and the necessary percentage of coverage needed to detect the presence of damage.

3. Mitigate: Execution, Validation, and Action. This critical phase focuses on executing the designed inspection plan, validating the collected data, and applying the findings to risk-reduction activities.

• Designing the Inspection Plan and Validating Data: The information obtained is used to determine a confidence level in acquiring the appropriate rate of damage (e.g., cracking presence/expected extent of damage or corrosion rate and suspected area affected within the equipment). If needed, additional inspection will be applied to gain a high level of confidence in this area, essentially validating the data.

• Informing Mitigation: The results of these inspection activities are used to inform mitigation activities where high risk exists due to present damage, or where the results present a high confidence quantification of damage, they are applied to the probability calculation, providing a well-informed threshold for acceptable likelihood/frequency in the risk assessment.

• Efficiency: Proper application of effective inspections that provide high confidence in damage quantification will lead to more efficient resource usage, streamlined equipment maintenance outages, and minimized unplanned equipment downtimes.

4. Evergreen: Continuous Improvement and Validation. RBI is not a one-time assessment; it is a cycle. The Evergreen phase ensures the program remains accurate and effective over time.

• Incorporating Results: The results of inspection activities are incorporated into the risk assessment and used to calculate a new probability.

• Determining Thresholds: This probability determines the threshold for the likelihood of failure.

• Future Mitigation: An understood risk threshold is used to determine future mitigation activities, continuously refining the integrity of the facility.

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