What is Asset Management?
Asset Management (AM) is a program or process that helps a company manage, maintain, and monitor its critical assets. AM provides information regarding the status of each asset and the knowledge to problem-solve if an issue arises. Effective AM helps keep an asset running efficiently at peak performance safely and reliably throughout its entire lifecycle.
Why is it Important?
Because assets are constantly monitored, there is a reduced risk of failure and expensive downtime. With a good AM in place, an organization will see its profitability increase because they have the knowledge to minimize downtime and optimize maintenance.
Asset Management in the Oil and Gas Industry
In the oil and gas industry, AM protects assets such as pressure vessels, piping and fittings, pipelines, tankage, wheeled fleet, tools, plant properties, and even people and finances. There are many physical assets to look after, which can be a daunting task. Inventory control, condition assessment, and risk assessment are priorities that will assist you in making the right decisions and making sure your equipment gets you a good return on your investment.
At Genesis QMS, we primarily focus on oil and gas pressure equipment. We have oilfield service company clients with over 50,000 pieces of pressure pipe, all mobile, all moving from wellsite to wellsite at various times and configurations. Much of it never ends up back on the original pipe skid or pressure vessel. Pressure pipe needs frequent inspection, and all must have proper certification.
Imagine on a frac day having equipment costing thousands of dollars an hour sitting idle on site. Being caught on a wellsite without a current Ultrasonic Testing (UT) report could mean you must spend money shipping new pipe to the wellsite. Or, you might need to hire an NDT company to travel to the wellsite to perform a UT inspection. All this means downtime, which can be extremely expensive.
In the service company example, what would it cost to shut down operations while you wait for an NDT team to come to the site and do an inspection? It would probably mean it would be your equipment’s last job for that oil company. For an operating or midstream company, it would mean thousands of dollars in lost production or fee revenue.
A good AM program will help protect your assets from these scenarios. Think of it like a well-run library. It is easy to access the information you need. Every book is cataloged and put in its proper place on the shelf. Without AM, it would be like walking into that library, and all the books are scattered all over the floor… impossible to find anything, and expensive to clean up. I would much rather have order than chaos.
Asset Management as Part of your Quality Management Solution
Your head is probably buzzing from all of the acronyms in the world of quality control and management. AM (Asset Management), AIM (Asset Integrity Management), APM (Asset Performance Management), ROI (Return on Investment), RBI (Risk-Based Inspection), PEIMP (Pressure Equipment Integrity Management Program, QMS (Quality Management System) or IMS (Integrity Management System as referenced in the PESR-Pressure Equipment Safety Regulation), CAP (Certificate of Authorization Permit) just to name a few. At the end of the day, all of these are part and parcel of your AM plan, which is then part of a larger Quality Management Solution.
An effective AM program will help form your overall QMS and provide your company with:
- Regulatory Compliance, which reduces risk and mitigates legal issues
- Confirmation for senior management that appropriate processes are in place
- Asset and equipment optimization
- Inventory control with certifications and documentation at your fingertips
- Integrity, reliability, safety, reduced repair costs, and fewer failures over the lifecycle of every asset
- Prolonged life of your equipment assets
- Accurate forecasting on the state of your equipment assets
- A strong Return on Investment by improving decision-making through constant monitoring and assessment
- Development of good business practices and policies
- An improved and up-to-date database, easily accessible by all users, including third parties such as NDT companies
- Reduced administrative time spent on data input and report generation
- A better night’s sleep because now you have knowledge at your fingertips, easily accessed at any time, which goes a long way to making that dreaded 3:00 am panic phone call a thing of the past!
Summary
An Asset Management system is one of the most important investments your company can make. It will help you stay ahead of the pack in this very competitive world.
These are days of instant information, and knowledge is power. Gone are the days of paper, bankers’ boxes, and filing cabinets.
AND, like I always say…we all deserve to have a stress-free sleep at night!
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