Cenosco, the global asset integrity management system (IMS) specialist, has chosen to partner with South Africa-based Chempute Software for the delivery of Cenosco’s IMS Suite of reliability safeguards for asset-intensive industries in South Africa and Nigeria.
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Cenosco’s IMS optimises asset utilisation, reduce unplanned shutdowns and ensures regulatory compliance to support high-risk assets.
“Our Integrity Management System (IMS) is designed to optimise asset utilisation, reduce unplanned shutdowns and ensure regulatory compliance across various industries, most notably oil and gas, chemicals and mining,” begins Omar Rugebani, Partners and Alliance director at Cenosco, who joined Cenosco to help build a network of partners to expand and promote Cenosco’s software.
He says that Cenosco was founded back in 2002 as a bespoke software development company. “We delivered custom solutions tailored to client needs, initially for Shell Global Solutions, the R&D department for Royal Dutch Shell, who approached our founders to develop a customised risk and reliability management (RRM) system for their oil, gas and petrochemical plants. Following initial success, the RRM system was rolled out across the whole of Shell’s global network and the company remains a loyal user of Cenosco software to this day.
The success of RRM, Shell’s satisfaction with its capabilities and the expanding capability prompted a broader initiative to develop a unified system that could support asset integrity management across all safety critical plant types. “This resulted in Cenosco IMS, our full asset integrity management suite, which was launched in 2014 – and today we are still evolving and rolling it out into an ever wider range of plants,” Omar Rugebani tells MCA.
The capability evolution
Cenosco IMS initially focused on pressure equipment, piping and tanks in the oil and gas industry, looking at degradation mechanisms and failure risks on a plant wide basis – due to corrosion for example. “We typically start with a risk-based inspection (RBI) assessment where the probability and consequence of the equipment failure is determined. This helps a site to prioritise their equipment based on criticality (risk). This, together with predicted remaining life analysis, is then used to determine the due dates and scope for equipment inspections,” he says.
“By predicting and tracking the expected life of plant components, intervention times can be optimised, remaining life extended and, most importantly, unscheduled shutdowns and unnecessarily damaging and dangerous failures can be avoided,” Rugebani points out.
In addition, as well including the asset integrity side, Cenosco’s IMS solution delivers enhanced uptime by supporting reliability centralised maintenance (RCM) analyses, leading to the execution of preventive maintenance tasks such as condition monitoring, failure finding, time-based maintenance and condition-based maintenance of equipment across the plant.
“But it also goes a step further in that it strives to enable operators to directly improve operational efficiency. By integrating risk-based inspection, preventive maintenance and centralised integrity data, Cenosco IMS enables plants to not only avoid failures but also to optimise asset utilisation, improve planning, and reduce unnecessary maintenance interventions. This delivers the dual benefit of fewer disruptions and smarter, more efficient operations, with more continuous production delivering significantly better profitability,” he notes.
From the initial IMS software, Cenosco began to broaden the scope of the suite. “We began to look at flange connection, for example, a major source of leaks on interconnecting piping. Then we went on to look at the functional safety and protection barriers on the front line of protecting people and surrounding plant from harm in the event of a catastrophe. Risk assessment routines such as Hazard and Operability Studies (HAZOP) and Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA) were included to identify potential hazards and assess the effectiveness of the protection layers in mitigating those hazards.
The latest Cenosco IMS Suite however, has taken the solution to a far more comprehensive level. “We now have an enterprise level, completely integrated and comprehensive modular software platform, designed to manage pressure integrity, reliability, functional safety and compliance across complex industrial environments. “Flagship users now include major energy operators such as Shell, Borealis, PTTGC, Thai Oil, Basrah Gas, Brunei LNG, Motiva, Equinor, HF Sinclair and many more. We proudly support these organisations in safeguarding critical infrastructure across upstream, midstream and downstream operations,” Rugebani adds.
When asked to highlight the key innovations that make Cenosco IMS a go-to solution, he says:
- The solution combines risk-based and condition-based (RBI and CBM) intelligence, enabling interventions to be prioritised where and when they are most cost effective and impactful.
- It centralises integrity management and removes data silos by integrating across pressure equipment integrity (PEI), reliability-centred maintenance (RCM), and pipeline and subsea integrity management (PLSS) domains for a unified view.
- Plug-and-play global compliance frameworks are embedded to align with API, ISO and local regulatory standards.
- Cenosco IMS is asset-agnostic and can be tailored to FPSOs, refineries, chemical plants, renewable and mining facilities and a host of other plants, all with minimal configuration.
- Open architecture supports interoperability and integration with enterprise asset management (EAM) and computerised maintenance management systems (CMMS) such as SAP and Maximo, along with real-time sensorised IIoT, AI, machine learning or digital twin platforms.
Remote access and digital twin technology
Cenosco’s forward looking IMS platform is now being connected to digital twin technology to enable comprehensive remote oversight of assets, especially in challenging environments such as offshore and unmanned platforms. By creating a virtual replica of physical assets and mapping it to IMS, relevant data, such as maintenance schedules and remaining life, can be visualised on the digital twin, enabling informed decision-making, without the need for a constant on-site presence.
Rugebani cites a case study in the Gulf of Mexico involving an unmanned platform operation, where Cenosco IMS plays a central role. Here he says, through digital twin technology, the asset health is being continuously monitored via data feeds into a virtual model of the plant. The model is integrated with IMS to leverage inspection, maintenance and analytics data for forecasting potential issues before they become critical, while insights from the digital twin help shape inspection and maintenance strategies to improve efficiency.
“Remote oversight is also built into the IMS through its AIR3D functionality, which includes visual observation scans using drones that enable 3D data to be uploaded into the system for analysis. 2D images and point clouds are also used by machine learning algorithms to detect integrity issues,” he explains.
A solution for Africa
Describing why Chempute is excited by the new partnership with Cenosco, Andrew Taylor says that many of the oil and gas, petrochemical and minerals processing plants on the African continent are getting quite old, most notably the oil refineries. “At Chempute, we have been looking for an inspection and maintenance solution to improve the reliability performance for clients for some time. A solution that enables these old facilities to operate reliably and safely, without unexpected shutdowns is exactly what plants now need,” he says.
“While we were looking, Omar contacted me and asked Chempute to have a look at the Cenosco IMS Suite within the context of the facilities that exist in Africa. We found the software to be very well suited to our continent and our country. The oil and gas facilities in Africa used to be owned by the large multinational corporations, but many have now been sold off to smaller operators,” he says, citing Glencore’s purchase of the old Chevron refinery in Cape Town as an example. “The new teams coming in desperately need to get a handle on how reliable the facility was, how they can get that reliability back and what they need to do to maximise their output and return these plants to their former glory,” Taylor explains.
“To achieve this at any ageing plant in Africa, a very effective maintenance regime is essential, and Cenosco IMS offers a full insight solution, highlighting the integrity and reliability of every aspect of the plant and making the full equipment condition history (ECH) readily available. This gives operators the opportunity to move away from traditional reactive approaches and towards forward thinking, transparent and more intelligent plant management strategies focused on maximising uptime,” says Andrew Taylor.
Citing his view of what success might look like in Africa, Rugebani says he hopes the partnership between Cenosco and Chempute in South Africa and Nigeria is defined by the widespread adoption of Cenosco’s IMS Suite as the preferred asset integrity management solution across key industries such as oil & gas, chemicals and mining.
“This includes delivering impactful implementations and building strong local competency through Chempute’s training team. We hope to foster awareness campaigns, align with local regulations, and position both companies as long-term digital transformation partners, ultimately contributing to safer, more reliable, and efficient industrial operations in the region,” he says.
Andrew Taylor’s view of success is more personal: “When a client company adopts Cenosco IMS, we train the plant operators, get it running smoothly, and then months later, when we come back and they tell us this is the best thing they've ever done: they have had no unplanned shutdowns; everything is working exactly as expected; the information they're getting from the system is relevant and useful; and they are very happy with Cenosco and Chempute’s roles in transforming their plant operations: for me, that is the ultimate measure of success for our partnership,” he concludes.