FAQS
Answers To Your Pipeline Program Questions
Find out more about how we drive value for operators through software implementations, consulting services, and a complete Governance Control System to meet key objectives in your pipeline program.
1. What is POEMS™ Certified?
POEMS (Pipeline Operations Excellence Management System) is a suite of software tools that work together to support natural compliance. POEMS™ Certified means that these tools have passed a rigorous process to integrate such that all compliance related activities are recorded to a compliance log organized to support regulatory audits. Operators use the tools to do the work, and the records needed for the audit are available without additional effort.
POEMS tools are designed to provide operators with the capabilities to manage the process and procedures, execute the workflow, record the activities, and improve communications across departments.
P.I. Confluence offers a set of software tools that are POEMS™ Certified. The Program Suite consists of the ComplyMgr and ProgramMgr modules. Included in ProgramMgr are the ICAM and pSEc features.
2. What is Stakeholder Engagement and who are my stakeholders?
Stakeholder Engagement is the process of encouraging those who are involved with our organization to participate in the improvement of our organization AND to develop a sense of responsibility towards our organization with a vested interest in its success. The stakeholders involved can be internal (Employees and Contractors) or external (Emergency Responders, General Public, Public Officials, Excavators, and Regulatory Agencies). Essentially, a stakeholder is anyone who can be impacted or provide feedback based on your operations. Our ability to capture feedback from those individuals with knowledge of our assets, our operations, or our environment in support of improved safety is directly proportional to the successful engagement of our stakeholders.
3. What is the objective of Stakeholder Engagement, and how can it benefit me?
The objective of Stakeholder Engagement is to develop relationships with our stakeholders, and to foster communications and information exchange (e.g. feedback). This relationship helps to drive continuous improvement / safety in our operating areas. Note: The output of the analysis of Stakeholder Engagement feedback provides one of the primary inputs to Management Review and Continuous Improvement.
4. How can we manage Stakeholder Engagement?
Managing Stakeholder Engagement requires a platform with the ability to consistently and effectively implement the quality management tenets of Plan, Do, Check, and Act.
5. What is a Governance Management System?
Most governance documents (plans, policies, and procedures) only go so far into the requirements for process and include high-level process workflow diagrams. Additionally, they state the need to monitor and/or audit where appropriate. However, what they do NOT do is reference the use of a governance management system designed to manage, schedule, complete, track, document, and report the requirements. Without a governance management system, the performance against the value / benefit statements associated with any aspect of governance cannot be measured. Thus, the effectiveness — either in execution or in terms of benefits achieved — cannot be determined. A governance management system needs to manage what we do as well as provide a platform to better understand what we know. A governance management system manages the plan, process, workflow, communications, and information exchange.
6. What is Process Management?
Process Management addresses the association of additional information related to the specific process to be executed. These might include lessons learned, meetings, notifications, the applicable target, and the responsible parties as in Responsibility, Accountability, and Authority.
Process Management provides the “Control” to any governance, such as a management system or an industry standard when processes are managed, scheduled, tracked, documented, and reported supporting the quality management bill of rights. It boils down to documenting that the right person did the right job the right way in the right place at the right time and got the right results.
The key to successful Process Management is to realize that you need to start with the desired end game in terms of reporting and performance measurement. Then you have to work your way backwards to ultimately design the processes, tasks, responses, and associated supporting information to meet the end game. Process Management does not conflict with any existing applications. Rather, it ensures that these applications are used by the right people in a timely fashion, these other applications inputs are utilized, and process outputs are stored/pushed into the next process.
7. What are the benefits of Process Management?
- Governance control.
- Consistency and sustainability.
- “Who, What, When, Where, Why” documentation.
- Workforce attrition protection.
- Management of change.
- Captures supporting information.
- Supports a defensible position.
- Maturity measurement.
- Improved communications.
- Program execution performance tracking and analytics.
- Program effectiveness performance tracking and analytics.
- Improved audits.
8. What is a Management System?
A management system or business system is simply the collection of processes that a company uses to manage its operations to achieve a particular outcome. For instance, an environmental management system determines and improves an organizations’ environmental position and performance. Most companies have around 30 key management system processes that include areas such as managing employee performance, identifying risks, training, continuous improvement, and planning.
9. What is a Safety Management System (SMS)?
Management Systems have seen much growth over the past few decades. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) alone has issued more than a dozen management systems in which a company can be certified. These management systems include, quality, asset management, risk, safety, environmental, etc. Many other organizations also prescribe management systems such as process safety management, lean/six sigma, and total productive maintenance. Most of those systems are designed to achieve a single outcome (quality, safety, compliance, etc.), and many companies have fallen into the trap of implementing multiple management systems. What they haven’t realized is that the vast majority of these systems contain exactly the same processes. A Safety Management System (SMS) integrates all of an organization’s systems and processes into one complete framework, enabling an organization to work as a single unit with unified safety objectives.
