Welding, Corrosion and Inspection
Inspection and NDT
API 580 and 581 Training: Risk-Based Inspection and Base Resource Document
Building a risk based inspection programme that inspects by consequence rather than by calendar.
- Duration
- 5 days
- Contact hours
- 30
- Level
- Intermediate
- Fee from
- On enquiry
Overview
Inspecting everything on the same interval spends the most effort where the least is at stake. Risk based inspection redistributes it, and the redistribution is the point: the same budget, aimed at the equipment where failure would actually hurt. API 580 sets out what a defensible programme contains and API 581 provides the quantitative method underneath. This week covers both, and spends as much time on the parts that make programmes fail as on the calculation: damage mechanisms identified wrongly, data nobody maintains, and a risk register never revisited after the consultant left.
Who should attend
Inspection and integrity engineers, reliability engineers, maintenance and turnaround planners, and managers accountable for inspection spend.
What you will be able to do
- Identify credible damage mechanisms for a given service and material.
- Assess probability and consequence of failure, qualitatively and quantitatively.
- Place equipment on a risk matrix and defend where it sits.
- Convert risk into inspection scope, method and interval.
- Keep the programme alive through evergreening rather than letting it date.
How it is taught
Short input, then work, across 5 days of roughly 6 teaching hours each. Exercises run on situations delegates bring rather than on a case study written for a different organisation. Cohorts are capped so that everybody is asked something.
Available as classroom, live online, in house.
Programme outline
Day 1
Why risk based
- What time based inspection misses
- The two standards, and the division of labour between them
- What a programme must contain to be defensible
Day 2
Damage mechanisms
- Thinning, cracking, metallurgical and mechanical mechanisms
- Screening by material and service
- Getting the mechanism wrong, and what that costs downstream
Day 3
Probability of failure
- Generic failure frequency and damage factors
- Inspection effectiveness, and how it changes the number
- The management systems factor
Day 4
Consequence of failure
- Flammable, toxic and non flammable consequence
- Area based and financial based consequence
- Choosing which to use, and then being consistent
Day 5
Plan and sustain
- Risk matrix, targets and tolerance
- Scope, method and interval derived from the risk
- Evergreening, reassessment triggers and data ownership
- Integrating with the turnaround scope
What you leave with
- A risk assessment for one equipment group, start to finish.
- An inspection plan derived from that risk rather than from the calendar.
- An evergreening routine with named owners and triggers.
Dates and fees
| Dates | Location | Format | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23 to 27 November 2026 | Cape Town, South Africa | Classroom | R15,000 |
| 30 November 2026 to 4 December 2026 | Cairo, Egypt | Classroom | US$1,500 |
| 7 to 11 December 2026 | Dubai, United Arab Emirates | Classroom | US$1,500 |
| 14 to 18 December 2026 | Windhoek, Namibia | Classroom | R15,000 |
Fees are per delegate and cover tuition, all programme materials and the certificate. Travel, accommodation and visas are arranged by the delegate. Registration closes two weeks before a programme starts.
Certificate
A GATI certificate recording what was attended, issued after the programme has run and attendance has been taken. Attending at least 80 per cent of the days earns a certificate of completion; attending less earns a certificate of attendance stating exactly what was attended. Every certificate carries a code that anybody can check against GATI's own record.
It records participation. and GATI does not claim one it does not hold.