“If you have a lot of spreadsheets, you are missing a lot of data.”
- User Group participant (who clearly feels the pain of data integration with Excel!)
It’s true. The more data you have and the more places you house that data, the harder it becomes to integrate data in a way that yields useful information.
Critical to the integrity process, however, is the ability to not only consolidate pipeline integrity data, but also align and visualize its’ impact on the pipeline as a whole. Storing the information in a geographic information system (GIS), alone, is not sufficient. An operator must analyze interrelationships among the data, to best isolate threats.
Digital transformation and integration have become integral to the integrity management process, providing the ability to consolidate inspection and related asset data to better understand and action active threats on the pipeline.
Data integration can yield significant value for pipeline integrity decision makers but can also be the most challenging undertaking for a pipeline operator to achieve, depending on the amount and source(s) of data.
- What data sources need to be integrated?
- Where will they be integrated and displayed (and how)?
- What format does each data point need to be in?
- Who overwrites who, when there is conflicting information for the same data point?
- Will the product of this data integration project yield useful information!?
These questions highlight some of the many challenges pipeline operators face when tasked with integrating data.
CIM has become a pipeline integrity data repository of sorts for not just inline inspection data but internal corrosion data and soon, data associated with external corrosion control and risk. CIM is also currently integrated with many operators’ Geographic Information Systems to source pipeline information that is utilized during the analysis of anomalies. The OBS team is also well versed in creating API integrations to push data back to the client, if needed. Therefore, it makes sense that CIM, a platform where pipeline data is housed, aligned and integrated, would be well-equipped to integrate and display multiple data sets in a visually useful way. This would thereby provide a solution to operators who discuss how difficult it is to have multiple apps talking to each other.
To that end, OneBridge Solutions has worked closely with 7 pipeline operators to help them solve their pipeline data integration challenges and prioritize what data elements are most important for alignment and visualization. Work is now well underway to create robust data visualizations that our clients can utilize when conducting their pipeline integrity information analyses.
Distilling the Key Elements
US regulations require 21 data elements for hazardous liquid pipelines and 47 data elements for gas pipelines to be integrated and analyzed, as part of their integrity management program. This includes everything from assessment data to location of foreign line crossing and casings to information pertaining to seismicity and “external forces.” It’s no wonder that pipeline operators find gathering and integrating their pipeline integrity data in one place so daunting. However, fortunately the user group was able to identify some key data elements that should be prioritized in CIM’s new reports:
- Inline inspection (ILI)
- CP/CIS
- HCA locations
- Map, showing location of pipeline w/respect to its environment
- External pipeline coating types
Phase 1
Considering the priority requests from the user group, the OBS team reviewed the data elements that CIM already has access to. It was clear that visually displaying some key data from the from inline inspection reports would be immediately beneficial to our clients i.e.
- Anomalies from one or multiple ILI reports, with filtering capabilities on assessment, anomaly type, etc.
- Repair information
- Elevation
- Pipe information: wall thickness, SMYS
Although some of these data points are available in a current CIM report i.e. Alignment Bands, improvements are being made to the visual representation of the anomaly data, and how additional information is provided.
Unlike the Alignment Bands report, this new data integration report will be “live” in that hovering over each anomaly will display more information about the anomaly, like metal loss subclass, depth and odometer. Each repair will show repair type, repair date, odometer and assessment name.
What’s Next?
Once this first phase is complete, the team will move onto the second and third phases of the project which include:
- Displaying data from PODS/GIS to add HCA locations, coating type information, etc.
- Adding publicly available mapping system to the top of the report
- Integrating and displaying data that is being uploaded into different CIM modules i.e. Internal Corrosion, Risk, etc.
- Reviewing data integration requirements and identifying gaps from 49 CFR 195.452(g) and 49 CFR 192.917(b).
Contact us to learn more about how OneBridge Solutions is revolutionizing data integration.
Mock-up of new data integration report
