Risk Based Inspection

The term 'total asset integrity' encompasses a broader scope, ensuring that all aspects of an organization's assets, including mechanical, structural, and process integrity, are maintained effectively. RBI (Risk-Based Inspection) methodologies are typically aligned with ensuring the overall integrity of assets rather than focusing solely on mechanical aspects or limiting it to a specific part like the plant.

Equipment reliability is especially important if leaks can be caused by secondary failures, such as loss of utilities. In these scenarios, the failure of equipment can lead to cascading issues affecting overall system performance and safety. Ensuring reliability helps prevent such secondary failures and the potential leaks they might cause.

Reliability centered maintenance (REM) and risk-based inspection (RBI) are both approaches aimed at improving the reliability and safety of equipment. The key objective of integrating these programs is to reduce risk through mitigation activities. By assessing potential risks and implementing maintenance strategies that address those risks, the overall reliability of the equipment is enhanced, and the likelihood of failures that could lead to downtimes or hazards is minimized.

Loss of containment refers specifically to the unintended release of fluids (liquids or gases) from their containment systems, such as pipes or vessels, into the external environment. This definition is commonly used in industries dealing with chemicals, petrochemicals, and other hazardous materials to describe incidents where there is a failure in the containment system resulting in a leak or spill.

Risk criteria need to be established to judge the acceptability of risk. These criteria provide a benchmark against which the level of risk can be compared to determine if it is acceptable or requires further action. Therefore, the establishment of risk criteria is a logical objective of the RBI assessment if such criteria do not already exist within the user's company.