Field Notes: External Visual Inspections – Commodity Work or Differentiated Work?

Editor's Note: We're pleased to introduce "Field Notes," a new column dedicated to breaking down essential mechanical integrity concepts that every inspection professional should understand. Too often, fundamental practices become routine "check-the-box" activities, causing us to lose sight of why they matter and how to execute them with excellence. This column takes a back-to-basics approach: each article will be concise, practical, and conclude with actionable takeaways. Readers are encouraged to submit topic suggestions, questions, or comments to fieldnotes@inspectioneering.com. All submissions will be kept strictly confidential.

External visual inspection (EVI) is one of the most common scopes of work in mechanical integrity (MI) at oil and gas operations. These inspections are typically conducted by certified inspectors across multiple equipment types, with the most common being tanks, pressure vessels, and process piping. In many jurisdictions, these inspections are governed by American Petroleum Institute standards API 653, 510, and 570 (for tanks, pressure vessels, and process piping, respectively). For the most part, these are normally performed at five-year intervals. I’ve heard some refer to this as “commodity” work or, rather, sort of mundane "check-the-box” activities. This article will discuss how we (MI inspectors) add value by not simply treating EVI as commodity work. It will also offer some different thoughts and key takeaways to consider implementing in your business.

Within the guidelines of the aforementioned codes, several helpful points are made on how these are carried out, including references to separate supporting Recommended Practice (RP) documents for pressure vessels (API RP 572) and piping (API RP 574). In these documents, sections are dedicated to explaining the roles and functions of different components, as well as their significance. What we often miss is tying all this information together and really formulating the best plan for how we approach an external inspection.

Early in my career, I was fortunate to be mentored by several great inspectors, many of whom didn’t necessarily start their careers in MI. Some were welders by background, others were previous nondestructive examination (NDE) technicians, a few were mechanics, and one was even a US Marine Corps Combat Engineer. What they all had in common was a very thoughtful, methodical, and detailed approach to everything they did. External inspections weren’t just a checklist activity to them. They took these inspections seriously, and it had a profound impact on how I approached these for the remainder of my 25+ year career doing this type of work. There was more than one case where we found not only significant corrosion or degradation during the basic visual inspection part of the work in the field, but often before we even got our permit to enter the operating area, they had already noted previous repairs from history that were available, spoken with a few different people from different crafts who were familiar with the unit and the equipment, and had portions of the report already filled out just in terms of history review. They knew specific areas of concern that they wanted to look at and had a rough plan of what discovery NDE they wanted to perform as a result.

I like to compare performing EVIs to a visit to the doctor’s office. When you arrive at a doctor’s office, one of the very first things you do is fill out a medical history report. Within this report, you disclose your family history, your own personal history, anything currently ailing you, and anything else that might be helpful for the doctor to know about you. Why is this? Imagine what would happen if the doctor didn’t ask about your family and personal history. What would they do when they met you? You might think, “Well, we would just talk through all of that instead of filling out the paperwork.” True, but still. Why isn’t that the current practice? You might think, “Well, that would take longer.” True again, but there’s probably another reason for this.

When you’re waiting on the doctor, you may think to yourself, What is taking him/her so long? It must be nice just to sit around and make people wait! What’s actually happening is that they’re going through the motions like an inspector should. They’re reviewing your history, checking to see if you’ve had any failures, repairs, current issues, or any other outstanding matters that might impact your overall health. They also couple this with why you’re there. When the doctor walks in the room, they already have a pretty good idea of what you should look like and what tests they may consider based on your static data (height, weight, age, etc.) and your history review. Sounds very similar to what I mentioned previously, right?

Considering this analogy, if we’re not performing our EVIs similarly, what value are we adding by simply looking at the outside of the equipment and reporting what we see? Some would argue that reporting what you see through the lens of trained eyes is valuable in itself. I admit there is some value there. But is it the most value we could be adding? You be the judge.

Every inspection is an opportunity to apply what you’ve learned previously and, more importantly, learn something new. Just like a doctor doesn’t run the same tests on every single patient or prescribe the same medicine to everyone, why would our approach to our equipment be any different?

In closing, I’ll leave you with a few questions to ponder, as well as a few takeaways. Let’s start with the questions:

• When is a checklist enough? Should it contain additional context via a written summary?
• How long should it take to perform a proper inspection? It’s not a race – thoroughness trumps speed.
• Are some of the valuable recommendations made during an inspection getting lost or overlooked?

And some takeaways:

• Always perform an EVI ahead of an internal visual inspection. If external issues are discovered, repairs and/or corrective actions may be performed during this time.
• MI owner/user inspectors and engineers need to ensure that the information necessary to perform a proper EVI is available to the resources performing the work.
• Inspectors performing EVIs must ensure that they research and understand the previous history of the equipment, including any outstanding work orders/MOCs/recommendations, as well as anticipate potential future degradation.
• Treat each EVI as a unique “patient.” If the history and appearance don’t match the symptoms and observations, involve the right people to understand the potential issues and conditions.
• Value from the inspector is derived by looking at the equipment from a holistic perspective.

If you have suggestions for topics you’d like to see in Field Notes, or if you have comments on this article, leave a note in the Comments or send me an email at fieldnotes@inspectioneering.com.