Transforming operational performance

Success story · Reliability & data

3,000 inspections a year, almost none of it analyzed

Every year, our field teams completed about 3,000 orifice plate inspections. Every result was recorded, and almost none of it was analyzed. This is how structuring data we already had turned a volume-based inspection program into a targeted, risk-based one, and avoided more than $60M in measurement risk.

The situation: the data existed, but nobody could use it

Natural gas measurement depends on clean orifice plates. Our technicians inspected them on a regular cycle, about 3,000 inspections a year across the fleet, and recorded what they found on Word forms or as PDF attachments to work orders. The information was there, but it was locked in documents. Nobody could trend it, compare sites or see which assets were getting worse.

At the same time, we ran a separate program of 75–150 in-depth meter-run inspections a year, at $5,000–$10,000 each in crew time and travel. Those sites were chosen by gas volume and meter size, not by measured risk. We were spending on the biggest assets, not necessarily the riskiest ones.

The question: what if the data told us where the risk was?

The goal was simple to state: turn plate inspection results into usable data, and send crews only where contamination was driving real measurement uncertainty.

The approach: four steps from paper forms to risk-based decisions

1. Prove it

   Before changing anything fleet-wide, we funded R&D testing. It showed real-world measurement uncertainty was far lower than theory assumed, which gave leadership the evidence to support the change.

2. Structure it

   The Word questionnaire became structured data fields on SAP work orders, written straight back to each asset's record.

3. Quantify it

   One risk formula combined contamination, measurement uncertainty and gas price, so every asset could be ranked on the same basis.

4. Act on it

   Condition-based work orders replaced volume-based selection, and a 90-day reporting cycle kept the whole fleet in view.

The result: fewer inspections, and better ones

Over four years of contamination condition monitoring, the program avoided more than $60M in measurement uncertainty risk. In-depth inspections dropped from 75–150 a year to 10–20, each one targeted at measured contamination. The data also surfaced high-impact assets that volume-based selection would not have inspected for five years or more.

Plate inspection results now live in SAP and refresh every 90 days, so each new decision starts from data rather than opinion.

What I'd tell any asset owner

Structure before you buy. New analytics and AI tools amplify whatever data sits beneath them, good or bad.

Prove it small first. Test evidence earned leadership support and funding before a single fleet-wide change.

Let condition drive the work. The data, not asset size or the calendar, should decide where crews go.

Randy Ducharme, P.Tech (Eng.), PMP, CMRP · Harper Rhys Consulting, Calgary, Alberta