Overview

About the Flexible RBI Methodology

GE Digital APM enables you to perform the RBI assessment through the following baseline methods:
  • Semi-quantitatively (RBI 580) – Based on API Recommended Practice 580.
  • Quantitatively (RBI 581) – Based on API Recommended Practice 581.

However, because of the broad diversity in organizations’ size, culture, federal and/or local regulatory requirements, some organizations may want to use their own RBI methodology. To meet such requirements, the API RP 580 is designed to provide a framework that clarifies the expected attributes of a quality risk assessment without imposing any undue constraints on users. GE Digital APM follows the same approach to offer you the flexibility to configure the RBI 580 methodology within the context of existing corporate risk management practices. The configured RBI 580 methodology is referred to as the flexible RBI methodology.

The following diagram illustrates the continuum of the RBI methodologies.



Each approach provides a systematic way to screen for risk, identify areas of potential concern, and develop a prioritized list for an in-depth inspection or analysis. You can choose any of the approaches for your analysis. However, consistency of the approach is vital to compare results from one assessment to the next.

Advantages of Flexible RBI

Following are some of the advantages of the flexible RBI methodology:
  • You can configure the existing RBI 580 methodology based on your requirements.
  • You can modify the calculations without editing the rules.
  • You can implement the flexible RBI methodology in a short time.
  • You can use the flexible configuration at any step during the analysis calculation.
  • You can use a combination of baseline and flexible configuration during the analysis calculation.

Flexible RBI Framework

By default, when you calculate the analysis, the analysis goes through the following validation steps:

  • Analysis validation: Verifies if all the required fields in the analysis have valid values.
  • CE Validation: Verifies if all the required fields in the consequence evaluation records have valid values.
  • DME Validation: Verifies if all the required fields in the degradation mechanism evaluation records have valid values.

If there are any validation errors, the appropriate error messages appear on the Analysis Calculation window and the calculation fails. If there are no validation errors, it goes through the following calculation steps:

  • CE Calculation: Calculates the consequence evaluation (CoF) values.
  • DME Calculation: Calculates the degradation mechanism evaluation (PoF) values.
  • DM Roll-up: Rolls up the CoF values to the degradation mechanism records.
  • Analysis Roll-up: Rolls up the worst-case risk values from RBI degradation mechanism to analysis.

Based on the calculation, the CoF and PoF values are updated in the analysis and the risk value is determined.

The following diagram illustrates the sequence of events that occur when you calculate an analysis:



As part of the flexible RBI implementation, all the validation and calculation steps are configured to check for a configured record at the beginning of each step. If a configured record is available for a step, it overrides the baseline validation or calculation for that step and perform the validation or calculation defined in the configured record. The following workflow illustrates the flexible RBI framework:

Note: The operations highlighted in orange color are part of flexible RBI configuration.


It is not required to configure all the validation and calculation steps to use the flexible configuration. Depending on your requirement, you can configure only the steps in which you want to achieve the flexibility. For example, if you want to configure only the DME validation and DME calculation, you can configure only these two steps. For other steps, the baseline validations and calculations will be performed.

The following sections in this chapter defines how to configure the flexible RBI framework. Each section contains an example that defines the steps that you need to perform to create a sample configuration.