Understanding the difference between visibility and ownership

It is important to understand the distinction between Visibility and Ownership.

Visibility may refer to both Equipment and the Hierarchy type (in this example, Equipment group). Particular Equipment groups will be visible in some modules, while not in others. For example, PEI will not see the Analyser Equipment group, while RCM will see the Bundle Equipment group.

Ownership refers to the Hierarchy type (in this example, Equipment group). For Equipment to be owned by PEI, the Hierarchy type must be owned by PEI and the Equipment must be visible in PEI.

The intent is to allow RCM users to perform inspections without having the PEI side affected by the RCM classification.

Equipment Example

At times, PEI will need to take over the ownership of a specific Equipment. IMS allows PEI inspectors to claim Equipment with an Equipment group owned by PEI. The process is as follows:

• [1] Create an Equipment with the exact name (as in RCM). IMS will notify you of the following:

  • [2] This Equipment already exists in the RCM module, meaning SAP or a non-PEI user has already created this Equipment. Being an asset integrity Equipment, you can edit as needed.

  • [3] The parent Id shown for the equipment will be added to PEI. If you do not want this then change the parent Id to the FLOC of your choice.

Take Note

Prior to version IMS 2023.1 Flocs, if not visible in PEI, must be claimed in PEI prior to Equipment.

The PEI inspector is allowed to edit the Equipment as required and make it visible in PEI. After clicking Save you will see a Success message and will be redirected to the Equipment Details Page of the newly updated Equipment which is now visible in PEI. The same is valid for its parent Floc, if said Floc was not previously visible in PEI.

Back in RCM, we can see that the editing rights have been limited now that the Equipment ownership has been transferred to PEI.

Note that similar operations can be performed in Bulk via Equipment import, as well.

Floc Example

Here we start from a Pipe Floc created in RCM, which by default is not visible in PEI.

The claiming process is identical to that of claiming Equipment as described previously.

After clicking Save, a notification is shown to confirm that the process has been completed, and the Floc visibility has been adjusted accordingly.

Currently, it is not possible to perform a similar operation for Flocs in bulk via Floc import.

Visibility reduction considerations

It occurs often that users need to remove something from any given module. Typically, PEI users will want to make Floc/Equipment not visible in PEI. This practice has shown to be rather problematic in a real-world application due to the following reasons:

• There may be multiple Equipment under the same Floc, complicating the matter of assigning correct visibility.

• Once Floc/Equipment is removed from PEI (no longer visible) other users will not be aware of their existence.

• Any history for inspections already performed on stated Floc/Equipment will no longer be accessible.

• Due to various functionalities, Flocs/Equipment may be automatically put back into PEI. For example, the CMMS interface, when triggered, will align the Floc/Equipment visibility to the CMMS type visibility.

The proposed solution is to use existing IMS features (Inspection Reason and Filters) to manage Flocs, Equipment, or Circuits that are not intended for inspection, while keeping them accessible to all users who may need to view them:

• Firstly make sure that all Flocs/Equipment/Circuits that should not be inspected (at least not any longer) in PEI have an appropriate Inspection Reason assigned. For this purpose, there are two appropriate options: “Class 4” and “No Insp. req”. Doing so will prevent default Schedules from being created on Equipment with the appropriate Inspection Reason.

• Next, we recommend filtering out Class 4/No Insp. Req from Floc/Equipment/Circuit grids. IMS allows several ways of managing filters. In the below example, we are showing how to create and save a new filter on the Floc grid:

  • Filter out inactive Flocs and Flocs with Class 4 Inspection Reason.

• Save the filter to make it easily available for future use.

• The saved filter can be selected from the drop-down list. After the filter is selected it is applied automatically to the grid results.