To help prevent gas pipeline failure, the federal Mega Rule has pipeline operators across the country verifying material records that date back decades. It’s a huge undertaking, considering much of the information is in paper files and field books.
To make these historical records retrievable and searchable, operators will need to digitize their information. But just finding this paperwork is a challenge, let alone correcting errors and formatting the results for use with modern integrity software.
The upfront, human effort to meet the Mega Rule is considerable; however, there’s an easier way.
Cognitive Integrity Management (CIM) software uses machine learning and innovative algorithms to onboard datasets in a fraction of the time it’d take manually, no matter the format.
What it means to drown in data
Before the Mega Rule came along, integrity teams were already managing vast amounts of data. Now, they need to expand their efforts to assets like gathering lines, and, additionally, close all the gaps in their material property records.
The result? Operators are tracking more pipe than ever before—they’re headed for the deep end of the data pool.
Locating old tool runs, direct assessments, and repairs is an exercise in frustration—sorting thousands of paper reports, X-rays, pdf’s, and photographs; it’s madness.
The Mega Rule is a complicated matter, and, thankfully, there’s a software that helps.
Getting “Mega Rule Ready” with machine learning
To meet Mega Rule pipeline requirements without being overwhelmed, companies must find a way to normalize large amounts of information. Multiple formats, varying degrees of degradation, misalignments, and errors won’t make the job easy.
It’s not all gloom & doom, however. Data science and machine learning are fantastic aids for an integrity team.
- Data science uses a variety of methods to transform information into something meaningful, such as insights that can be put to use.
- Machine learning is a subset of data science—it’s a form of artificial intelligence that uses algorithms to predict and classify large amounts of data. The more information the machine processes, the faster it “learns” and the more accurate its algorithms become.
OneBridge’s onboarding tool “hot taps” into the power of machine learning, adjusting to a pipeline’s worth of data in various formats. The Cognitive Integrity Management (CIM) software ingests any template, and then checks for issues, errors, and completeness.
Accurately aligning to pipeline assets
Integrity teams want information mapped to the pipeline. If mapping isn’t accurate, threat analysis (and most of the costly dig program) turns into a fiasco.
To align a mishmash of data to a pipeline, most companies have resorted to manually coding ETL scripts. This painstaking process devours time—definitely months, sometimes years—and draws personnel away from essential integrity work.
Fortunately, CIM is on the job with machine learning. It performs over 2,000 automated checks as data is ingested and instantaneously runs self-learning classifiers to produce results free of errors and inconsistencies.
Integrating any vendor’s dataset
Comparing results from different smart tool vendors (past, present, or future), each with their own templates and reporting practices, is a struggle.
Machine learning conquers this challenge.
With software like CIM it’s possible to drag a dataset into the onboarding tool and, with minimal supervision, let the algorithm take on the hard work. Imagine the relief! No more mind-numbing spreadsheet mapping.
With vendor data aligned and all in one place, pipeline companies can master their analysis, identify interacting threats, and prioritize their responses with confidence.
Building non-stop momentum for integrity intelligence
The Cognitive Integrity Management (CIM) platform contributes to greater integrity intelligence in two significant ways.
First, CIM lets operators finally take advantage of all their integrity data.
When it comes to pipeline analysis, a manual process is workforce-intense. The experts, really, only have time to scrutinize about 5-10% of a smart tool run—the rest goes to waste.
With cloud computing and machine learning, every bit of information is examined and accounted for, to ensure complete analysis with less effort.
The second way CIM aids integrity is by detecting industry trends.
With access to consolidated results from multiple companies (stripped of any identifying details), there’s potential to validate, and capitalize on, threat patterns.
The more data CIM’s algorithm takes in, the more it “learns” and improves, which benefits every company that contributes to the intelligence.
Report ready, effortlessly
The Mega Rule has pipeline operators managing considerably more information than they’re used to, leaving many drowning in data—but with CIM’s technology they can rise to the top.
Contact OneBridge to discover how our Cognitive Integrity Management software makes reporting for the Mega Rule speedy and stress-free.
