What is asset integrity management (AIM)?
Asset integrity management, or AIM, is a holistic approach that ensures industrial assets' dependability, security, and efficiency throughout their operational lifecycle. The core objectives of AIM are to avoid equipment failures, adhere to regulations, and maximize the lifespan and effectiveness of critical assets across various industries.
Why is asset integrity management important?
Asset integrity management is important for many reasons, including minimizing risks and managing potential failures in electrical assets and other critical components in an organization's infrastructure. When these assets fail, it can lead to costly downtime, personnel safety hazards, and wider damage to the business.
Asset integrity management includes the following key components:
- Risk assessment: AIM performs rigorous risk assessments to detect potential faults that could be detrimental to the reliability of industrial assets. These include lifetime approaches for controlling the risk of corrosion, erosion, fatigue, and other issues.
- Maintenance strategies: This includes adopting practical maintenance approaches to maintain the excellent condition of assets. These practical maintenance approaches could include preventive maintenance, which is periodically done to address issues as they arise but before they escalate; reactive maintenance, when quick actions need to be taken; and predictive maintenance, using actionable data-driven insights.
- Inspection and monitoring: To ensure that asset integrity is maintained, applying inspection and monitoring approaches is crucial. This can include corrosion monitoring, non-destructive testing, and real-time sensor data for asset integrity monitoring measures.
- Personnel training: Providing relevant training guarantees the expertise of those working on asset management and integrity projects. Professionals with the appropriate skills and knowledge are essential for efficient asset management and risk reduction.
- Documentation and record keeping: This involves properly documenting records on the condition of assets by noting inspection results and maintenance activities. This is crucial because it provides trackable data on asset history, offering insights for future decisions and compliance standard maintenance.
- Regulatory compliance: In-service assets must typically follow industry and regulatory standards. These regulatory standards cover several areas of asset operation that include (but are not limited to) industry-specific requirements, asset integrity, and maintaining environmental and personnel safety in line with regulatory requirements.
- Continuous improvement: Facility owners are driven to ensure that outages due to mechanical failures or other equipment integrity factors are minimized because of how costly the negative impact can be. Ensuring that continuous improvement is maintained helps to monitor the integrity of assets with performance data and implement appropriate approaches to update maintenance procedures or make worn-out part replacements, guaranteeing the smooth running of assets.
