The Maritime Corrosion Management and Prevention Solutions Forum, held at the recent CORROSION 2017 conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, spanned a wide range of topics presented by industry experts.
Moderated by NACE International’s Chief Maritime Officer Buddy Reams, the session began with remarks by NACE President Sandy Williamson on the need for NACE to diversify into new industries—including maritime—that can benefit from the knowledge, experience, and programs available through NACE. He described key findings from the March 2016 NACE IMPACT Study (impact.nace.org), primarily the need to change how corrosion management decisions are made, as well as valuable information on how to save billions of dollars in costs and increase return on investment.
Reams then introduced keynote speaker Captain John Mauger, Commanding Officer of the U.S. Coast Guard Marine Safety Center (Washington, DC). Mauger described the challenges of maximizing the use of marine vessels over their entire lifespan by designing for and controlling corrosion while striving for zero impact on the environment.
“We must also change the prevailing mindset in our industry that corrosion is simply a cost of business,” Mauger says. “We need new tools for managing the increasing complexity of our marine systems to control corrosion risk and accelerate and improve decision making.”
Past President Elaine Bowman, Project Manager for IMPACT, then presented a summary and update of the study. She says IMPACT provides tools and information on how to rate a company’s corrosion management program and integrate it throughout the organization. Future activities include conducting IMPACT studies specific to India and Mexico and developing the IMPACT Plus portal. IMPACT Plus is a set of online asset management tools that offer a common language and structure needed to ensure communication throughout all levels of an organization. Components include the Corrosion Management Process Framework, the Corrosion Management Maturity Model, featuring five performance levels spanning 10 domains, and a reference library. IMPACT Plus will be launched in the fall of 2017.
The NACE International Institute Contractor Accreditation Program (NIICAP) was the next topic on the agenda. Moderated by NACE member Cathy Perkins of Apache (Houston, Texas), the question and answer session featured a panel of owners from Chevron (San Ramon, California), Dow Chemical (Midland, Michigan), Sumitomo (Tokyo, Japan), and TransCanada (Calgary, Alberta, Canada). They discussed the value of NIICAP in determining who to hire for coating applicator projects and its effect on retaining experienced, quality employees in their companies.
“The mission of the program is quality,” Perkins says. “Our intent is to meet customer specifications on time, the first time, and within budget.” This would lead to repeat and consistent business for NIICAP-accredited companies, she adds, which are formally audited on an annual basis.
Reams then introduced a panel of staff and members who discussed NACE technical activities and standards in the maritime industry. NACE and affiliated organizations are working to develop new standards and identify gaps where others are needed to address marine concerns.
In closing, Reams says, “I encourage you to talk to your peers and open new collaborations when it comes to better design and maintenance of assets. The consequence of not having such collaborations is that corrosion control will remain status quo—simply the cost of doing business for maritime owners and operators. By sharing knowledge in the corrosion industry and working together, we will see great improvements moving forward.”
Source: CORROSION 2017 Conference & Expo, nacecorrosion.org.