Stop Chasing Inspection Data
Across Spreadsheets
Leverage your facility's data to enhance maintenance, operations, and reporting.
Drill Into The Details
Empower your personnel with comprehensive details and insights for simplified asset tracking, improved maintenance efficiency, and precise lifespan calculations.
TMIN Calculations
Design Minimum Thickness calculations and material stresses included for API 650/653, ASME Section VIII Div 1, B31.1, B31.3, B31.4, and B31.8 standards.
Additional Properties
Go beyond the data fields in MI Suite. If you track additional information for your fixed equipment, create additional fields to capture, report, and visualize this data.
File Attachments
Quickly attach files, documents, photos, and other relevant data to the inspection record and optimize maintenance operations with enhanced data quality.
Non-Conformances
Identify, generate, rank, and monitor non-conformances through closure. Repair work orders are created automatically in the CMMS system.
Ensure a PSM compliant program with either time-based or risk-based approach.
PSM Compliance
Track PSM compliance metrics to ensure adherence to regulatory requirements.
Asset Files
Upload U1's, manufacturing drawings, and inspection files directly to asset records.
Risk-Based Inspection
Quantify risk with API 581 calculations to optimize your program.
Inspection Strategies
Configure your company-specific inspection protocols for consistency and optimization.
Corrosion Monitoring
Capture thickness readings at consistent locations for corrosion calculations.
Non-Conformances
Rank non-conformances to automate work order generation in SAP, Maximo, and any other CMMS.
Our API 581 quantitative risk engine is built directly into the MI Suite and adds a layer of validation for improved decision making. Quickly and confidently analyze consequence areas for preventive maintenance and inspection planning optimization. API 581 Risk Engine features include:
Inspection Data Management Systems (IDMS) Enable High-Fidelity Data Capture.
Inspection data from field technicians is uploaded via the customized data entry forms to calculate corrosion rates and remaining lives of asset components. Preventive maintenance strategies can then be planned for based on findings.
Fast Answers for Fast-Moving Teams
VisualAIM assists in these crucial initial steps:
Defining Scope: To estimate resource requirements, VisualAIM helps understand the total number of in-scope assets. We typically start with the facility's Asset Register or Master Equipment List (MEL). If this data is unavailable or of low quality, they leverage their Intelligent P&ID capabilities to automate the extraction of the MEL faster and more accurately from legacy P&IDs. We often recommend focusing on key assets like Pressure Vessels, Heat Exchangers, and Storage Tanks initially.
We help categorize existing data into three tiers:
- Tier 1 (Best): Data residing in databases, third-party software, or coherent spreadsheets (1-2 hours/asset for collection).
- Tier 2 (Better): Electronic files like PDFs, Word documents, images, and AutoCAD files (3-5 hours/asset for collection).
- Tier 3 (Good): Illegible scans and physical paper copies (8-10 hours/asset for collection). VisualAIM uses programmatic approaches to process disorganized electronic files and even assists with scanning physical documents, streamlining the data collection and migration process while identifying and addressing inconsistencies.
The implementation of a Mechanical Integrity (MI) program is driven by three primary and interconnected reasons, often summarized as "the why": safety, compliance, and value (ROI).
Safety: The foremost reason is to ensure the safety of personnel by preventing incidents like loss of containment that could lead to injury or damage. A robust MI program helps confirm that assets are in sufficient condition to operate safely, ultimately aiming to build a safer operation and reduce incidents.
Compliance: Closely tied to safety, compliance involves adhering to regulatory standards, such as those from OSHA, EPA, and API, particularly in the U.S. process industry. An MI program, especially when supported by software, enables facilities to demonstrate compliance to auditors, avoid liabilities from non-compliance, and track key Process Safety Management (PSM) metrics.
Value (ROI) and Efficiency: This driver focuses on the financial justification. MI programs create value by preventing negative outcomes and increasing efficiencies. This includes preventing unplanned downtime, extending equipment lifespan, shifting from reactive to proactive maintenance, enabling faster data recall for maintenance personnel, and improving overall decision-making due to centralized and higher-quality data.
For multi-facility organizations, an enterprise-wide MI platform further enhances value through improved data visibility and data-driven decisions across sites, leading to benefits like benchmarking and optimized budget allocation.
A phased approach is typically recommended for enterprise-wide MI software implementation, especially for dozens of facilities. This approach usually involves three phases:
-Phase 1 (Quick Win): Minimal data load (primarily the Master Equipment List) to provide early visibility and exposure to the software for site personnel
-Phase 2 (Bulk of Work): Gathering and extracting all requisite data points, associating electronic files with assets, making the program fully operational for users.
-Phase 3 (Ultrasonic Thickness Data): Focusing on Condition Monitoring Locations (CML) and associated thickness measurements. This is left for last to avoid delaying the program's operational status, with a focus on normalizing CML placement and naming conventions.
This phased approach provides quick wins, allows for refinement of processes, and ensures that users become familiar with the system progressively, leading to better adoption.
The primary benefits of implementing the software are centered around significant gains in operational efficiency, enhanced data management, and improved compliance and risk mitigation.
• Drastic Efficiency Gains: The software can lead to a substantial reduction in the labor required for asset management. A testimonial from a Plant Manager at Air Liquide noted that after implementation, their asset management team was reduced from fifteen people to just two, demonstrating the software's powerful impact on productivity. Another user praised it as a "time saver" that "really reduces the man-hours for Asset Management Records".
• Centralized and High-Quality Data: By serving as a central repository for all fixed equipment information—including mechanical properties, drawings, U1 forms, and inspection files—the software provides a single source of truth and the "highest level of data clarity and organization for your assets".
• Automated and Streamlined Workflows: The suite automates key processes to reduce manual effort and ensure follow-through. It can identify, rank, and monitor non-conformances through to closure, and it can be linked to a CMMS system (like SAP or Maximo) to automatically generate work orders for repairs.
• Enhanced Compliance and Safety: The software is built to ensure a PSM-compliant program. By capturing a detailed history for every component—including inspection dates, thickness readings, and non-conformances—it enables better preventive maintenance planning and a clearer view of an asset's health over time.
