Dr. Ken Oliphant, Patrick Vibien
Papers # 2014 Chicago
New and formal approaches to Asset Management (AM), such as the PAS-55 and ISO 55000 Asset Management standards have been developed over the past decade. These AM standards can be applied to pipelines and cover all stages of a pipeline's lifecycle - acquisition, operation, maintenance and renewal/disposal and provide guidance and a requirements checklist of good practices in physical asset management. These AM standards include a significant focus on the acquisition phase of an asset as the future system operating capabilities, reliability and risk profile of new or replacement pipelines are largely set in this phase for buried pipelines by the choice of products and the installation practices used in construction. As such, this is a particularly critical phase of a pipeline’s lifecycle. Asset Management plans need to, therefore, ensure proper focus on the pipeline acquisition phase to improve long term system risk profile. Utilities have experienced significant maintenance/replaces costs associated with premature failure of pipe and components. These are not easy to combat after the fact or by employing standard methods. A new approach is needed for the industry; this approach is the PAS-55/ISO 55000 compliant JANAcquire55™ process. The implementation of this process for the acquisition phase of a product lifecycle will help utilities to eliminate early pipeline failures and to extend the life of new pipelines past the point of relevance to today’s stakeholders. The process is outlined and an example presented.
There is a growing interest by gas utilities to improve their performance through improved their asset management (AM) practices. Whether it is to increase reliability, reduce risk or to make better operating decisions, utilities are adopting formalized AM practices. In evaluating rate cases, some public utility commissions are starting to base decision making on more sophisticated risk evaluations that require comprehensive system knowledge and plansi . The required information may only be available with the implementation of the appropriate AM practices and systems. Two suites of standards for AM have been developed: 1) PAS-55ii series and 2) ISO 55000iii series. While these standards are generic for physical asset intensive industries (e.g. railways, shipping, real-estate, etc.), they provide a consistent framework for management to identify and implement the appropriate business structures so as to be able to make effective data driven decisions. Organizations can be independently audited and certified to these standards, indicating to the public, shareholders and other stakeholders that they have a structured process to manage their pipeline assets. Most recently, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) gas division was recognized by Lloyd’s registration to both PAS-55 and ISO 55000, a first in North Americaiv .
