Do You Know Your Facility's Pressure Vessel to Inspector Ratio?

Toward the end of last year, Inspectioneering conducted a survey with the goal of answering the following question: "How many pressure vessels do facilities have compared to the number of inspectors responsible for them?" The answer to this question is an important metric for developing proper plant inspection staffing numbers. Inspection managers, among other facility decision-makers, may benefit by knowing this ratio relative to what exists at their own site.

Inspectioneering received responses from a wide array of facility types (the majority being oil refineries) located on all six of the inhabited continents. In total, facilities reported 832 inspectors responsible for just over 143,000 pressure vessels.

The following chart shows the results of the survey.

The chart is divided into three different facility types. Each facility type shows two different ratios: (1) the ratio of code-stamped pressure vessels to only owner-user employed inspectors, and (2) the ratio of code-stamped pressure vessels to both owner-user employed and full-time equivalent contract inspectors.

In the near future, Inspectioneering will be publishing an article providing further detail and analysis. Furthermore, we intend to run this survey and others on a periodic basis in the future to help keep track of industry trends and provide benchmarks for our readers to use to improve their facilities.