A key part of the Plant Condition Management System (PCMS) is a fully-integrated Risk-Based Inspection (RBI) Module within the program, which supports quantitative, semi-quantitative, qualitative, and imported RBI) data.
Design, operating, and inspection data from PCMS continually feed into the RBI calculator, providing a truly evergreen approach to RBI management.
PCMS' embedded RBI calculators enables PCMS users to risk rank equipment, prioritize inspection and maintenance tasks, identify potential damage mechanisms, and recommend the appropriate inspection procedures.
The PCMS Semi-Quantitative RBI Calculator has been developed by combining the PCMS RBI Subcommittee’s expertise with base models and theories from multiple industry organizations and best practices, including:
With the integrated Semi-Quantitative RBI Calculator, users can maintain inspection data and perform RBI analysis all within one software program. It automatically identifies susceptible damage mechanisms and consequences per circuit. Inspection plans are automatically created, identifying potential damage mechanisms and recommending inspection techniques.
From all of this, an RBI target date is generated, based off of risk thresholds, to aid in the inspection planning process. The Semi-Quantitative RBI Calculator also performs a “what-if” analysis based on inspection effectiveness applied with custom risk matrix dimensions and parameters.
The API 581 quantitative RBI calculator integrates directly into PCMS, and calculations can be run in the background of PCMS processes, with no need to interrupt typical user operations.
PCMS also offers a Qualitative RBI Calculator for users that prefer this form of RBI methodology.
Damage mechanisms, consequences, and overall risk rank can be assigned to each equipment or corrosion circuit in the program. Damage mechanism inspection intervals, as well as inspection procedures and techniques, can be configured per risk rank and used in inspection scheduling analysis as well as the inspection execution.
As illustrated by their names, the Semi-Quantitative RBI Calculator takes a more data-intensive approach, while the Qualitative RBI Calculator is a relative risk-ranking that does not calculate probability of failure (PoF) or consequence of failure (CoF).
No matter which RBI Calculator a user chooses, updates to any damage mechanism in the program will seamlessly update any future inspection schedule.
PCMS also incorporates a newly-developed qualitative RBI approach for pressure relief valves (PRVs), which uses a series of questions to rank probability and consequences of failures, taking into account key PRV risk drivers, including:
If the user prefers to perform RBI analysis outside of PCMS (3rd-Party RBI Tool), PCMS can integrate these results directly in the program through use of the RBI Integrator.
Users can also export any PCMS data needed to perform RBI outside of the program (design, operation, inspection grades, corrosion rates, etc.).
The RBI Integrator will allow the user to perform proper RBI analysis using actual inspection data maintained in PCMS, while providing a central platform to continue to schedule, record, and analyze asset integrity from within one application.
