SS: Floating System Integrity Management: Developing a Process
Authors: Wisch David J. , McMaster Fraser J. 
Published: July 2009

The drivers, background, development and deployment of the FSIM process within Chevron will be described. Additionally, the integration into an overall Asset Integrity Managment system will be illustrated. Details as to risk identification and ranking leading to inspection and monitoring programs will be provided as will data management considerations, linkage to work processes, accountability and governce/management systems, etc.

Integrity management has been developed and codified for fixed offshore platforms over the past 50 years. As the floating systems mature and experience is gained coupled with the financial impacts of floating systems, there is a growing interest and need for risk management through integrity management systems. This paper will provide the background and drivers for the development of an integrity management program consistent across the enterprise for floating assets in many of the global offshore basins.

Introduction

Integrity management has been prevalent for years in the offshore oil industry as well as other industries. Likely the best known integrity programs occur in the commercial aviation industry. One not need to look far to hear news reports of incidents coupled with reports of past directives or procedures issued to operators of planes in the commercial fleet. (examples/references) In the past several decades, integrity management, often assigned different titles, has become more prevalent in both the industrial and general community settings. When dealing with the structural aspects, titles such as " Structural Health Monitoring??, " Life Extension??, " Assessment, Inspection, Repair??, " Inspection, Maintenance, Repair (IMR)??, etc. The reader can find many references to integrity program practices, reliability program practices, etc. in professional journals, conference proceedings and industry forums. The most confusing aspect is the overlapping and oft synonymous use of the terms integrity and reliability.

Integrity management for offshore oil industry floating systems has its genesis in two parallel but distinctively different fields. The first is an extension of the class society programs developed for ships and the second from the fixed platform practices of the past half century. The integrity programs emanating from the shipping industry have been founded on the concept of a detailed inspection program performed in dry-dock on a periodic basis, generally five years, coupled with thousands of years of vessel service allowing effective empirical inspection practices that if performed and anomalies corrected, satisfactory service is expected. The underlying principle for these type vessels is if standard practices are followed in the design and operations, cracks or damage leading to catastrophic failure will be found and corrected during the inspections and the damage growth rate is slow enough that catastrophic failure from an anomaly will not occur in the time period between inspections. In the past decade Reliability Based Inspection practices have supplemented the historic empirical approaches. One commonly referenced set of guides from a class society, are theABS (American Bureau of Shipping) class rules and guides (1-5). Bureau, Veritas (6) Det Norske Veritas (7) and other class societies have similar rules and guides. As the offshore oil industry introduced mobile drilling units (MODUs) in the 1950's and various types of floating production systems in the 1970's, the class societies extended drew upon their experience and developed rules and guidance for these type facilities as well. The one common factor remaining in both the ship rules and the MODU documents is the reliance on the periodic dry dock inspection.