Asset Integrity Management: Interview with Prof. Dr. Eng. Moustafa Mohamed El-Gammal

Prof. Dr. Eng. Moustafa Mohamed El-Gammal is Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Engineering University of Alexandria, Egypt and Consultant Engineer, Marine Approved Surveyor. In this interview, he describes asset integrity management.

Describe root cause analysis (RCA). How does it relate to asset integrity?

RCA [is used] to investigate all integrated assets affecting the cause of failure and to develop strategies for encountering failure acts by economic, technical and practical means of obviation leading to minimization of those failures as well as offering solutions aiming at reducing the probabilities of repetition of failure twice.

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Asset Integrity is the collection of sciences while the technical cast mould is the RCA. Both are to serve and act with each other towards the sorting out problems mainly like enhanced oil recovery in oil and gas industries.

How can RCA prevent recurring failures?

• Explain and give examples of correction, corrective action and preventive action
• Explain the links between management controls and effective problem solving
• Select and apply a range of basic problem solving tools and techniques
• Recognise what is required to embed effective solutions

What are failure causes, and why is it important to analyze them?

Non-fulfilment of a requirement can be a source of endless troubles and will lead to disastrous results and hence can cause to catastrophic environmental damages and crippling the industrial sector at large. Thus RCA is a good practical tool to best recurring activities to increase the ability to fulfil requirements.

Please provide some best practices to implement an Asset Integrity Program.

Asset Integrity can offer corrective solutions through experiencing and studying and hence providing the following:

• Corrective Action is the implementation to eliminate a detected nonconformity.
• Preventive Action, which is the action to eliminate the cause of a detected nonconformity or other undesirable situation.
• Elimination Action, which eliminates the cause of a potential nonconformity or other undesirable potential situation.

What are some ways to improve safety conditions?

• Prevent problem solvers jumping to conclusions through looking deeper to the real cause
• Facilitate root cause analysis to prevent recurrence by defining well-planned solutions after recognizing the real causes
• Demystify the problem solving process by intensive use and applications of practical and industrial tools
• Help with choice of tools to promote solutions to epidemic daily problems such as corrosion erosion and improve the lifecycle as well as to better reduction in downtime and better achievements in maintenance strategies
• Promote learning through better plans of training based on technical assets

How can we improve inspection and monitoring to protect oil and gas and petrochemical assets?

• Defining practical solutions will lead to better answers of questions like: What are you trying to do?
• Better inspections as well as using advanced fitness for performance will all lead to handling the right answer of the complexity of the tool—what will it do?
• Promoting Group knowledge/experience facilities will acknowledge in good and better ways of eliminating the bad cause and separate the harm before the accident can occur
• Availability of data will acquire the management to have good managerial decisions and thus avoiding of catastrophic incidents

Is there anything you would like to add?

Root Cause Analysis is thus furnishing comprehensive sets of different tools directed towards being cast and mould in good guidance and offering better earning solutions as well as considered to be the future shed under which all serve towards better control, reducing toll of loss in lives and property and thus will have good impacts on industries.

No matter whether the concerned industry is in petrochemicals, marine fields, aviation practices or managing production facilities all will suffer and all will be under the mercy of bad consequences unless implementing the theories into practical solutions through the RCA.

We can work together by putting RCA programs tailored for definite solutions by series of training programs that will fulfill Asset Integrity management and can thus lead to better earnings and better tools of enhanced oil recovery.

Interview by Jessica Livingston.

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