Workflows at Work: HF Alky Flange Management

 HUVR is proud to offer a wide range of inspection solutions that expedite and simplify your processes – each Workflows at Work piece in this series highlights one configuration of the near-infinite workflows that HUVR optimizes. Curious about the simplicity and savings as you read? Reach out to an expert to ask about replicating this success with your business today.

Flanges are one of the most critical components of a pressure system, ensuring critical fluids and gasses are contained safely within the confines of the pressurized system. When corrosion affects the pressure containment surface of a flange, the leakage that ensues can quickly lead to unacceptable loss of primary containment and unplanned outage.

With HF Alky flanges in particular, units contain hot, high-flow, and high-pressure substances like hydrofluoric or sulfuric acid that are highly dangerous and cause corrosion much quicker than an average flange. That’s why inspecting quickly, often and catching issues early is mission critical when inspecting HF Alky flanges. HUVR makes HF Alky inspection management simple and efficient for inspectors, automates and expedites the review process, and enables maintenance and inspection teams to make data-driven critical decisions to improve the workflow and flange management process. Here’s how.

SET-UP

When conducting an HF Alky flange inspection in HUVR, the first step is to create projects for each flange in a piping section. This process is made easy with HUVR’s world-class support team, who will work with you to create projects to the level of granularity you need to be successful in the field or in the office. These projects are configured according to the asset owner’s system, as every project and component in HUVR is configurable according to the asset owner’s preference and regulatory needs. This configurability means that data taken in the field is standardized across any and all vendors and helps organizations like yours stay compliant in the process.

When configuring an HF Alky flange project in HUVR, the client can include relevant specifications such as:

• Material
• Flange rating
• Isometric drawing
• Corrosion circuit
• Thickness readings
• Pressure ratings
• Bolting/torquing sequence information
• Last inspection and repair dates

…and more. Information provided in HUVR can be specified to the organization’s needs at any level of granularity required. 

When working with a large number of flange inspections, a parent project can be created to organize the individual inspections underneath for better visibility and project management. 

Of course, security is paramount at HUVR, so access to each project or data set is granted on an as-needed basis and can be configured at the individual or group level so that each member of the team has only the access they need to be successful. Asset owners who need to be able to view each project in the system can be provided access to all projects in question. In contrast, third-party contractors who only need access to the projects they are assigned can access each job accordingly while sensitive customer data privacy remains intact. 

EXECUTION 

Once all of the necessary HF Alky flange projects have been created and a crew has been assigned to each, it’s time to begin the inspection. As the inspector conducts each inspection, they’re not limited to taking just one or two photos or trying to describe leak severity. Instead, with HUVR’s application InspectFlow+, inspectors can work offline and capture large sets of imagery and video with sound.

As the inspector conducts an inspection, they will fill out each section of the checklist in InspectFlow+, following the nomenclature and protocols set out by the asset owners during the set-up phase, making the process simple and straightforward. Because these checklists are configured to the asset owner’s unique compliance and organizational needs, the data comes back standardized no matter the vendor, so organizations juggling several vendors at once still get the data they need in a format that works for them. Inspectors using InspectFlow+ are also able to take numerous photos and videos to reflect the condition and corrosion of the flange. HUVR’s configurable checklists allow asset owners to see each time an inspector examines the flange. When a spectacle blind, paddle blind, or paddle spacer is entered, what bolting method was used, which gasket was in when disassembled, which was put in at reassembly, and more. 

Once in a location with connectivity, the findings are uploaded and stored in the cloud, eliminating the errors and costs associated with double entry of data or hand copied data. HUVR automatically generates a report with an elevated summary of the findings – findings are configured according to the categorization systems outlined by the asset owner. Subsequently, the asset owner can automate their data flows by sending notifications automatically in HUVR to the appropriate site management or service providers to let them know the inspection is ready for the next workflow step – reviewing and determining a plan of action based on the category, severity, and prioritization of anomalies. Some SMEs might already be monitoring the progress from a configurable, filter-enabled dashboard where they can also see when inspections are completed promptly. In cases of mass quantities where organizations are managing inspections for, say, 5000 flanges across four units in a typical turnaround, having a configurable dashboard you can filter according to your desired criteria is a must-have time saver and aid. SMEs may also push data into any other dashboarding tools as desired for organizations that prefer their own internal business intelligence, work management, or engineering systems. 

REMEDIATION 

The automatically generated reports, complete with embedded full-resolution imagery and video, provide actionable insights, enabling flange management engineers to make quick, effective, data-driven decisions regarding the flanges in question. Damage assessments and categorization are completed automatically in HUVR, and when utilizing our visual AI API integrations, AI can access these findings, run analyses, and update the findings accordingly – all in an instant. 

If the damage assessments and AI-generated findings completed in HUVR determine the asset to be in upstanding condition, the findings are reviewed and confirmed. If they find an actionable issue that exceeds a predefined technical threshold configured in HUVR, the findings are sent to the SME for review where the appropriate remediation can be determined. HUVR’s easy to use, tiered-access platform makes accessing this historical data a breeze, reducing re-entry and re-ordering errors in the process, and making your teams safer, smarter, and more efficient as inspections are completed and reviewed.

OUTCOME

The immediate upload of data, AI-powered detection capabilities, automatic and filterable reporting, and all-in-one interconnected interface that HUVR provides exponentially reduce review and execution time for your teams as well as manpower for your inspection and review process. Costly reorders and data re-entry errors, unstandardized data, and poor user experiences become a thing of the past with HUVR. These savings mean organizations like yours can make decisions faster than ever before and with fewer steps in the process.

Want to learn more about our other cost-reducing workflows or speak with an expert to learn more? Check out our latest installment of the Workflows at Work series or schedule time with a HUVR expert here.