Joint Data Management System Joint Integrity: The Essential Elements
Authors: Milne G. L. 
Published: August 2008

Leaking joints are a main cause of hydrocarbon releases on United Kingdom Continental Shelf (UKCS) offshore sites. The consequential costs of shutdowns and repair can be very high. There are other significant risks, notably to occupational safety, major incident safety and the environment. Fundamental to joint integrity is the competence of the personnel involved. Leak data indicates that poor joint make-up is a major cause of leaks and a review of the causes confirms that the current skills and practices do not give leak-free joints. Therefore the most important element of a management system is to have competent people working on joints. A competence assurance process should be established where the level of training, assessment and experience required is dependant on the potential severity of a release. The results of this should be that that all joints are made up by personnel with an appropriate level of competence. Control of the competence of people working with joints is the most important factor in preventing leaks. There are many ways to influence the integrity of a pipe joint, particularly during design, procurement, fabrication and any intrusive work. A Management System should include details of best practices that are available, with a guide to when and where they should be used, and clarification on tightening methods. Most of these best practices already exist either as industry or company documents but may not be used effectively. • The management system should improve both their visibility and their use, and ensure capture and transparency of all specific historical joint data. Each operator should positively and effectively manage the integrity of bolted joints. It is expected that this will be built on a process of continuous improvement. The essential elements of such a management system are: • Ownership: There should be an identified owner of the management system, responsible not only for its implementation and ongoing maintenance, but also for communicating its aims and objectives throughout the organisation. The owner should state the expectations for the system and monitor its effectiveness. • Awareness: Everyone with an influence on joint integrity in the organisation should be aware of the management system, its objectives, expectations and effects on day-to-day working. Good awareness needs to be maintained. • Tools: A set of implementation tools is required to ensure that the expectations can be met. These should include risk assessment, competence management and control of the practices used. These are discussed in more detail later in this document. • Records and Data Management: The certainty of a successful joint being made up increases if historical data exists on the activities carried out in the past. Recording traceable data encourages best practice at the time of the activity, and will provide useful planning data for the next time the joint is disturbed. • Learning: Learning from incidents is important. A management system should include the means for gathering relevant data, which should be collected by operations engineers or technicians, and periodically reviewed to establish trends, performance and improvements. • Measurement: Easily monitored, but meaningful, performance standards should be put in place at launch to quantify the contribution being made by the management system and evaluate user satisfaction. Examples include: • The number of recorded leaks during testing and start-up; • Percentage leak reduction attributable to the use of the management system.