The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way the world does business, and it's certain to have consequences for asset owners and the maintenance engineers they rely on to protect valuable equipment.
Even as the global economy recovers and more facility managers return to work, many will confront two significant challenges. The first will be the demand to reduce costs and manage corrosion with fewer people on-site. The second will be to find innovative tools that enable staff members to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively, especially those required to work remotely.
The PPG ASSET INTEGRITY MANAGEMENTTM (PPG AIMTM) system helps meet all those challenges and more.
The importance of asset management
The most obvious way asset owners can cut costs is through better asset management. When NACE International published its widely read IMPACT study in 2016, the association estimated that implementing corrosion-prevention best practices could produce up to $875 billion in global cost savings, or up to 35 percent of the total cost of corrosion damage worldwide.
While many asset owners realize the benefit of comprehensive corrosion prevention programs, one of the most common pitfalls associated with their failure is an inability to stay the course and realize their full economic value. The PPG AIM system is an industry-first, software-based system created specifically to help asset owners avoid such hazards by making scheduling, budgeting and optimizing corrosion prevention programs easier than ever.
How does the PPG AIM system work?
The foundation of the PPG AIM system is a proprietary corrosion-forecasting algorithm, created by PPG engineers using statistical models produced by NACE and the International Standards Organization (ISO). NACE and ISO originally developed these models to help maintenance engineers predict, using proven scientific data, when individual assets would begin to fail so routine maintenance could be done at the most economical time in the corrosion-prevention cycle.
Actual implementation of the PPG AIM system begins with a visit to the customer site. In addition to mapping the plant, PPG staff conduct a corrosion assessment and quantity survey, then enter collected data into the system's digital asset management tool.
Once this "digital twin" o f the facility is constructed, PPG timestamps and analyzes the current condition of inventoried assets using criteria published in NACE technical paper 509, one of the industry's most authoritative texts on corrosion management. PPG AIM software then uses the timestamps and corrosion assessments to model future asset conditions.
The asset management tool also acts as a master catalog and user interface for facility managers, providing on-demand access to asset-related materials such as timestamped photos, condition analyses, plots, inspection reports and other related documents.
Budgeting and scheduling
The main benefit of the PPG AIM system is its advanced schedule management software. Using modeled asset conditions created with the program's corrosion-forecasting algorithm, the tool enables asset managers to plan and budget maintenance schedules adjusted to any time horizon requested by the system operator.
Another feature that sets the PPG AIM system apart is the sophistication of its estimating tool. Unlike competitor systems, this component calculates manhours, production rates, materials and other costs based on surface area, type and condition at time of maintenance, then uses this data to apply a difficulty factor based on project scale, elevation and access. The estimating tool also incorporates other cost modifiers such as abatement, containment and multiple color schemes into its model.
Finally, using a viewer-friendly graphical display, the software identifies the best time to perform maintenance on every asset in the program's inventory and provides inflation-adjusted cost estimates for when that work is scheduled.
If plans change due to budget increases, cuts, project delays, extreme weather or other variables, the estimating tool and schedule manager enable program users to "game out" multiple corrosion maintenance scenarios and adapt maintenance schedules and spending accordingly.
Why the PPG AIM system is different
The best way to extend the life of individual assets is to apply corrosion-protective coatings and complete other related maintenance activities when it is most economically efficient. Using its predictive modeling software, the PPG AIM system helps to objectively identify those times.
Although other predictive corrosion- management programs are available, the data most use are based on condition analyses gathered through visual inspection of assets, conducted every three to four years by plant personnel. In addition to being highly subjective, even for maintenance departments with consistent asset-evaluation standards and low staff turnover, ongoing scope creation and project estimating using such criteria is both time- and labor-intensive.
Another problem is that the data collected through such evaluations is static. Consequently, programs using this input cannot account for factors that may accelerate corrosion of key assets between inspection intervals, nor can they account for the many variables covered by PPG's advanced estimating tool.
The PPG AIM system mitigates these drawbacks. Using data collected by PPG at customer facilities, the program helps maintenance professionals implement dynamic "just-in-time" coatings maintenance programs that objectively predict -- years in advance -- when to apply or reapply coatings at optimal times in an asset's lifecycle.
Back to the beginning
That leads back to the beginning of this article. By combining all these elements into a single software-based program, the PPG AIM system enables asset owners and maintenance engineers to meet the challenges of managing corrosion-vulnerable assets in a post-COVID business environment -- that is, with lower costs and smaller staffs, supplemented by an industry-leading tool that allows work to be done remotely with objective, digital, accessible data.
For more information about the PPG AIM system and its successful implementation at individual plants around the U.S., visit www.ppgpmc.com/aim or call (888) 9PPG-PMC [977-4762].
