RIMAP
project
'Risk
Based Inspection and Maintenance Proceedures for European Industry.'
Status:
Completion by March 2004 Project
website: http://research.dnv.com/rimap
Overview
Risk Based Inspection and Maintenance
Procedures for European Industry (RIMAP) is a European project that
aims at developing a unified approach to making risk based decisions
within inspection and maintenance. The project started on March
1, 2001 and will run for three years.
RIMAP
overview
Background:
Current practice to inspection and maintenance planning is for most
industries based on tradition and prescriptive rules, rather than
being an optimised process where risk measures for safety and economy
are integrated. New technology for taking risk-based decisions is
emerging within a broad range of sectors, and has proven to be a
very efficient tool. However, there is a great need to define the
technical content, links to local legislation and to integrate this
approach with the day-to-day operation.
This
is the main background for the RIMAP project, where a consortium
of 16 European companies representing a broad industry base have
joined forces to develop a European best practice and to demonstrate
its applicability in several case studies. The project addresses
the petrochemical, chemical, steel works and the power industry
in particular, but the techniques can easily be extended and be
used in other industry sectors as well.
Objective:
The objective of the project is to define a unified approach to
making risk based decisions, within the field of inspection and
maintenance (Fig.2). Risk is here understood as the combined effect
of probability of failure and the consequence of a failure (personnel
safety, quality of product, environmental damage, and economic loss).
The main benefits of the work will be:
-
cost-optimised inspection/maintenance plans that will save operational
and risk costs in the order of 10 to 40% for the involved industries
-
improved safety for plant personnel and the society en-large
-
a technical framework for a European standard
European
technology progress and social benefits: There is a great need for
standardisation within the area of inspection and maintenance in
Europe (ref. EPERC - European Pressure Equipment Research Council).
Several initiatives in the US (API, ASME & EPRI) have proven
to be successful, but these may not be in line with European legislation
and design practice within safety and environment.
The
RIMAP project aims at:
- Developing
a unified approach to risk based maintenance and inspection planning
-
Setting requirements to the contents of an analysis, personnel
qualifications, and tools
-
Forming the basis for future standardisation in this area.
Deliverables:
The main deliverables from the RIMAP RTD project will be:
-
A method describing a unified approach to maintenance and inspection
planning based on risk decision criteria and cost optimisation.
-
Documented validation and testing of the method within several
major industry sectors.
-
Guidelines for practical use, in the format of one "Workbook"
for each industry sector.
-
Spread knowledge between industry sectors.
The
RIMAP method will be tested within 4 industry sectors in the RIMAP
Demonstration project and, as such, it will be a major contribution
to European standardisation.
Innovation:
The main innovation aspects of the RIMAP project are:
-
The integration of maintenance (RCM) and inspection (RBI) into
a uniform decision process with balanced effort between the expenditures.
-
The use of probabilistic decision analysis for process systems
is in its infancy, in particular when it comes to use of inspection
and monitoring data. This will be explored and tested in the case
studies.
-
Combining the theoretical modeling of plant failure ("hard"
knowledge) with plant experience ("soft" knowledge)
will be developed into a rational method.
-
Technology transfer between industry sectors, i.e. some sectors
have used risk based decision for many years, whereas other have
not. The project will facilitate such transfer.
Goals
and Benefits:
The expected benefits of the RIMAP project are;
-
For the plants/end-users: Savings in operational expenditures
and failure costs. A clearly defined philosophy for how the planning
can be done.
-
For the inspection companies: Tailoring of tools and methods to
satisfy the industry needs and give awareness of their limitations.
-
Regulators: Knowledge and ability to set proper requirements to
the Risk based decision analysis work performed at the plants.
Derive a technical basis for a new standard in the field.
-
Consultants: A framework for providing enhanced services for the
industry in particular during plant networking and outsourcing.
Contacts:
For further information see:
RIMAP RTD or RIMAP Demo project: http://research.dnv.com/rimap
RIMAP TN: http://www.mpa-lifetech.de/rimap
or contact:
Sture Angelsen
Mail: Det Norske Veritas, N-1322 Høvik, Norway.
E-mail: rimap@dnv.com
Phone: (+47) 67 57 91 77
Fax: (+47) 67 57 99 11
Url: http://www.dnv.com
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