Page 40 - Pipeline Risk Management Manual Ideas, Techniques, and Resources

Reliability 1/19
As a fundamental part ofthe quality process, we must make a Rather than having a broad pipeline operating program to
distinction between types ofwork performed in the name of the allow for all contingencies, risk management allows the direc-
customer: tion of more energy to the areas that need it more. Pipelining
activities can be fine-tuned to the specific needs of the various
Value-added work. These are work activities that directly pipeline sections.
add value, as defined by the customer, to the product or serv- Time and money should be spent in the areas where the
ice. By moving a product from point A to point B, value has return (the benefit) is the greatest. Again, measurement sys-
been added to that product because it is more valuable (to the tems are required to track progress, for without measurements,
customer) at point B than it was at pointA. progress is only an opinion.
Necessary work. These are work activities that are not value The risk evaluation program described here provides a
added, but are necessary in order to complete the value- tool to improve the overall quality of a pipeline operation.
added work. Protecting the pipeline from corrosion does not It does not necessarily suggest any new techniques; instead
directly move the product, but it is necessary in order to it introduces a discipline to evaluate all pipeline activities
ensure that the product movements continue uninterrupted. and to score them in terms of their benefit to customer
Waste. This is the popular name for a category that includes needs. When an extra dollar is to be spent, the risk evaluation
all activities performed that are unnecessary. Repeating a program points to where that dollar will do the most good.
task because it was done improperly the first time is called Dollars presently being spent on one activity may produce
rework and is included in this category. Tasks that are done more value to the customer if they were being spent another
routinely, but really do not directly or indirectly support the way. The risk evaluation program points this out and measures
customer needs, are considered to be waste. results.
Profitability is linked to reducing the waste category while
optimizing the value-added and necessary work categories. A X. Reliability
risk management program is an integral part of this. as will be
seen. Reliability is often defined as the probability that equipment,
The simplified process for quality management goes some- machinery, or systems will perform their required functions
thing like this: The proper work (value added and necessary) is satisfactorily under specific conditions within a certain time
identified by studying customer needs and creating ideal period. This can also mean the duration or probability of fail-
processes to satisfy those needs in the most efficient manner. ure-free performance under the stated condition.
Once the proper work is identified the processes that make up As is apparent from this definition, reliability concepts are
that work should be clearly defined and measured. Deviations identical to risk concepts in many regards. In fact, sometimes
from the ideal processes are waste. When the company can pro- the only differences are the scenarios of interest. Where risk
duce exactly what the customer wants without any variation in often focuses on scenarios involving fatality, injury, property
that production, that company has gained control over waste in damage, etc.. reliability focuses on scenarios that lead to equip-
its processes. From there. the processes can be even further ment unavailability, repair costs, etc. [45]
improved to reduce costs and increase output, all the while Risk analysis is often more of a diagnostic tool, helping
measuring to ensure that variation does not return. us to better understand and make decisions about an overall
This is exactly what risk management should do: identify existing system. Reliability techniques are more naturally
needs, analyze cost versus benefit of various choices, establish applied to new structures or the performance of specific
an operating discipline, measure all processes, and continuously components.
improve all aspects of the operation. Because the pipeline capac- Many of the same techniques are used, including FMEA,
ity is set by system hydraulics, line size, regulated operating lim- root cause analyses, and event-tree/fault-tree analyses. This is
its. and other fixed constraints, gains in pipeline efficiencies are logical since many ofthe same issues underlie risk and reliabil-
made primarily by reducing the incremental costs associated ity. These include failure rates, failure modes, mitigating or off-
with moving the products. Costs are reduced by spending in setting actions, etc.
ways that reap the largest benefits, namely, increasing the relia- Common reliability measurement and control efforts involve
bility of the pipeline. Spending to prevent losses and service issues of (I) equipment performance, as measured by availabil-
interruptions is an integral part of optimizing pipeline costs. ity, uptime, MTTF (mean time to failure), MTBF (mean time
The pipeline risk items considered in this book are all either between failures), and Weibull analyses; (2) reliability as a
existing conditions or work processes. The conditions are char- component of operation cost or ownership costs, sometimes
acteristics of the pipeline environment and are not normally measured by life-cycle cost; and (3) reliability analysis tech-
changeable. The work processes, however, are changeable and niques applied to maintenance optimization, including relia-
should be directly linked to the conditions. The purpose of bility centered maintenance (RCM), predictive preventive
every work process, every activity. even every individual maintenance (PPM). and root cause analysis. Many of these
motion is to meet customer requirements. A risk management are, at least partially, risk analysis techniques, the results of
program should assess each activity in terms of its benefit from which can feed directly into a risk assessment model.
a risk perspective. Because every activity and process costs This text does not delve deeply into specialized reli-
something, it must generate some benefit-thenvise it is ability engineering concepts. Chapter 10, Service Inter-
waste. Measuring the benefit, including the benefit of loss pre- ruption Risk, discusses issues of pipeline availability and
vention, allows spending to be prioritized. delivery failures.