Workflows at Work: Pigging and Dig Verification

HUVR offers a wide range of inspection solutions that expedite and simplify your processes. Every entry in the Workflows at Work series highlights one of the near-infinite workflows that HUVR optimizes. Would you like to know more about bringing more simplicity and savings to your operation? Reach out to an expert to ask about replicating this successful workflow and putting it to work for you.

Out of sight, out of mind is the bucket many people put store pipelines in. Filling cars with gas, grabbing out-of-season produce from the fridge, or flicking the light switch and trusting the bulbs will be energized: pipelines are a big part of the effortless ease we enjoy every day. However, the many organizations that work daily to ensure that pipelines are secure and compliant with local regulations do not have this luxury. Pipelines transport precious products essential to our modern life. To ensure product security through pipeline integrity, teams must regularly use pipeline inspection gauges (PIGs) to check for leaks or corrosion, and the results often require dig verifications to ensure accuracy and allow data-driven decisions about monitoring, remediation or replacement.

Pigging is a foundational integrity inspection conducted on pipelines today – often a single organization can perform up to hundreds in a year to ensure their pipes are in optimal condition. With such a massive volume of inspections (and the subsequent thousands of dig verifications), data management can quickly become a challenge. Keeping up with all the inspections while continuously monitoring conditions and using historical data to inform decisions about remediation efforts in a cohesive way quickly creates the potential for costly mistakes. A system that can effectively integrate with pigging devices, organize the data, keep a long term record of maintenance activities, and seamlessly share data with existing systems of record is crucial for any organization conducting pigging and dig verification activities in such volume. Teams using HUVR for their pipeline maintenance activities can check all of these boxes and then some – all with the click of a button. Here’s how.  

SET-UP

HUVR’s world-class service team works closely with your organization to optimize your asset management system. Projects are created in HUVR to organize your inspection and maintenance data in alignment with your piping structures – how this is structured may vary per organization, but they are often broken down into manageable sections of piping that are regularly monitored for corrosion or damage. These projects tied to an asset or piping system store all of the data associated with that asset in one place indefinitely. This means that pigging scan data is accompanied by the context of any other inspections conducted in HUVR, allowing for a fuller picture of the asset’s health. HUVR can also ingest geolocation data so all of the inspection and maintenance data is contextualized to the precise location of the asset or anomaly. 

Any documentation or inspection checklists are also stored within the same projects – inspectors in the field conducting verification measures or maintenance activities can reference historical documentation for even more clarity and insight. Your team has full control over the guidelines, SOP documents, and checklist parameters to ensure standardized data capture in the field and compliance with regulatory and organizational standards across vendors. 

Teams enabled with HUVR will also have a built-in notification system. Automatic scheduling, created with your organization’s needs in mind, notifies teams when it’s time to send PIGs back out for a scan. 

Powerful, massive data sets – like frequent PIG scans – require powerful security measures. HUVR’s all-in-one Reliability Automation Platform allows absolute control of the flow of information. Teams can define access roles for different inspectors or teams so that each individual only has the exact access they need to be successful. HUVR is also SOC2-certified to ensure your data is secure anywhere in or out of the field. 

EXECUTION 

Once projects are set up and schedules are set, pigging can begin. Intelligent PIGs are sent through the pipelines to take stock. They can assess for a number of important measures – most notably for our purposes, they will look for anomalies and corrosion areas that exceed organizationally and federally set guidelines. HUVR seamlessly integrates with virtually any device, including PIGs, so teams using HUVR will receive the data directly from the field once the pigging process is complete. 

Any additional inspections that need to be conducted simultaneously can be completed with ease using HUVR’s field app, InspectFlow+. Teams can take UT (ultrasonic testing) scans, photos or videos of any external corrosion or leaks, and conduct inspections via digital checklists directly in the app. All the inspection and maintenance data is stored in one location while in the field, and is then automatically uploaded to the cloud once back online. 

Back in the office, your experts can review the PIG scans in HUVR, or review them in the pig viewers themselves. The platform, accessible anywhere, from any device, accommodates and retains virtually any file format, even the largest pigging datasets, making the review and processing of PIG scans a breeze. Teams aren’t bogged down by forcing systems to communicate or manually translating data. All the data is at your team’s fingertips for easy review. 

If anomalies are detected, a dig verification is often ordered to address the issue. Crews are sent out to the identified points, and assessments are conducted accordingly.  Findings may be generated if there are serious or concerning corrosion or leak issues, and the remediation process begins. 

REMEDIATION 

Reports detailing the findings are generated automatically in HUVR. These contain any embedded imagery, checklists, and links to the pigging scans. If questions arise about the dig or pigging results, SMEs can easily review the findings to conduct their own assessment. The type of remediation ordered depends on the severity of the issue.

If the anomaly is not severe enough for a repair or replacement order, teams may flag the area as one to continue monitoring, and may increase the frequency of their pigging and verification efforts until the corrosion crosses a certain threshold. If the severity of the corrosion or leak has reached a tipping point, teams can order repair activities via HUVR. Notifications will be sent to the appropriate groups for immediate action. 

All of the insights recorded during inspection, remediation, and replacement are stored indefinitely in HUVR, the single pane of glass with which your teams can monitor the asset’s long-term health. Configurable dashboards give a birds-eye view of the historical data for quicker, more accurate decision-making. Teams conducting future pigging operations or digs will be able to see the asset’s health in the context of its entire lifecycle and make decisions accordingly. If a section of pipe experiences leaks too often or is corroding more rapidly than is normal, technicians will be able to quickly flag them, optimizing their asset management strategy and catching issues faster than ever before. 

Unlike disconnected software that may silo your organization’s pigging and dig verification data, HUVR integrates seamlessly with existing systems of record like GE’s APM or SAP so that your teams can review and share data with whatever tools work best for them, keeping your team – and your data – on the same page every time. 

OUTCOME

Teams using HUVR can conduct pigging and dig verification activities with greater efficiency by managing their high-volume piping system maintenance in one convenient location with an optimized asset hierarchy that works for their organization. Storing your data indefinitely in one centralized location means that your teams have long-term insights to contextualize the data and ensure decisions are well-informed, made quickly, and often. Seamless integrations with any PIG and existing systems of record create a steady flow of information, ensuring users are well-informed with a lower risk of data translation errors/operational issues. Maintenance and remediation efforts are also made simpler with HUVR’s automatic notification systems and configurable dashboards, so that decisions can be made quickly, efficiently, and through one pane of glass. Teams using HUVR for their pigging and dig verification activities are more efficient than those without.

Find out how HUVR can help your team’s pigging and dig verification processes and reach out to an expert today.

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