Prior to commencing work on a flange, select a flange and print a Work Instruction for it.

The Work Instruction will open automatically as below.

Save the Work Instruction to a location and if required and print a paper copy of the report to complete.

To print a Work Instruction for multiple flanges, select all required flanges using the checkboxes in the left-most column and repeat the Work Instruction generation process.

The generated document will include a separate Work Instruction report for each selected flange.

Save and print off the reports file to be completed as required.

A Work Instruction report can be generated which covers all flanges currently displayed in the flange register grid.

Open the reports menu and select the Work Instruction (Grid) option to generate the report.

One document consisting of a Work Instruction report for each flange in the grid will open automatically.

The file can be saved as a single document and all reports may be printed in hard copy format for completion as required for upcoming flange activities.

1.2.1 – Filtering the register for a Grid report

If the user has used the column filters to display only specific flanges, the Work Instruction (Grid) report generated will reflect this.

In the example below, the flange register has been filtered for flanges of Joint Type ANSI and Flange Sizes ¾” and 10”.

Selecting the Grid version of the Work Instruction report will generate a report for only these displayed seven flanges.

Navigate to the Personnel Register and click the ‘Add’ icon to open the Add Personnel window.

Using the right-click of the mouse will similarly bring up the context menu which can be used to open the same Add/Edit Personnel window.

2.1.1 – Basic personnel identification and Job Description

Complete the fields for the person’s Name and allocate a Job Description from the four options of Technician, Supervisor, Inspector and Engineer.

Designating a person as a Technician will enable them to carry out flange activities, while Supervisors may also be configured to do this by way of the project preference “Supervisors are Technicians”.

Only persons designated as ‘Inspector’ can be selected for inspection activities.

The Company field will store previously entered company names and offer them as available options as the user enters some valid characters.

Enter the name of the person’s Company; this is the last of the mandatory fields. This Company field will store previously entered company names and will offer them as pre-selected options as shown below.

To add qualification details to a person, click the Select File icon and then browse for and upload a qualification document applicable for the person.

The two icons on the left of the Select File icon allow the user to View and also Delete an uploaded qualification document at any time.

Each qualification document should have a Certification Expiry date. Once this date has passed, the certificate is no longer valid and the user is made aware of this.

Click the calendar and select the expiry date for the person’s qualification certificate.

The certificate will expire at midnight at the end of the selected date, inclusive. So as 23:59:59 hours on 26/05 turns to 00:00:00 hours on the 27/05 in the above example.

2.3.1 – Certificate Expiry Warning Period – Project Preference

The personnel register uses a colour-coding logic to indicate the state of the certificates of all personnel.

The colour coding is summarised in the table below.

The above colour coding is displayed on the left-most column of the Personnel Register

As can be seen, the application allows for technicians to be without certification as per customers’ requests.

Not all fields in the Personnel window are mandatory but they can be populated for completeness.

A photograph of a person can be uploaded by clicking the Add Photo ‘Select’ icon.

Once uploaded and saved, the image is displayed on the right-hand Info Panel in the location indicated above.

The user can manually enter a Vantage Number for the person in the Vantage # field, however this is also not a mandatory field.

A person can be deleted from the personnel register at any point by selecting the person and clicking the Delete icon, OR by using the right-click context menu.

A confirmation window will appear, and if the user clicks OK, the person is deleted from the Personnel Register.

After deletion, the technician/person will no longer be selectable for carrying out flange activities, however all historical records of activities carried out by the person will remain unaffected.

All torque tools available for an installation are accessible via the Tools tab.

To create a new tool, click the Add icon in the Tools register and the Add Tool window will open.

Nearly all fields are mandatory and so are appended with an asterisk* to signify this.

Select Torque from the first dropdown menu.

Next, specify the Supplier and Model of tool required.

3.1.1 – Search Bar Function

The list of torque tool Suppliers and Models can be filtered which makes finding tool options easier.

Type a tool Supplier of interest into the search bar and the list will filter to display only those Suppliers containing those characters.

In the image below, simply by typing in the characters “En” has filtered the Supplier types to display only ‘ENerpac’, ‘Manual Torque WrENch’ and ‘WrEN’.

In the Model dropdown, the user has entered the value ‘10’ which has reduced the list down to 3 tool models containing the digits ’10’.

3.1.2 – Enabled/Disabled Tools

A new tool will be enabled by default meaning that it can immediately be used to carry out tightening activities. The tool can be disabled by un-selecting the checkbox within the Add/Edit Tool window OR from the Tool register itself.

Add/Edit Tool window:

Tool Register view:

Complete the remaining mandatory fields in the same manner as the Add Technician process. The tool requires a Serial Number, Calibration Number and a Calibration Expiry Date. The user must also upload a Calibration Certificate file which can a mandatory requirement for some tightening activities.

The Certification Expiry field also works the same as with the Personnel Certification, with the warning periods colour-coding being controlled by the same Project Preference.

3.1.3 – Edit and Delete Tools

The user may make changes to tools and also remove tools from the register at any point by clicking the Edit and Delete icons.

3.1.4 – Add Tools from other Locations

Tools may also be added to the tools register from within a flange activity cycle.

To do this, select a suitable flange and click the Record Activity icon.

Cycle the flange through any necessary activities until you reach a Torque activity.

At this point the Add Tool sub icon will be displaying in the top right corner of the activity window.

In the below example, a Norbar 100 torque tool is required to tighten this flange, however, as none currently exists in the register as can be seen by the below “No Data Found” message.

Click the Add Tool icon and create a Norbar 100 tool.

Then select this new tool to continue completing the Torque activity.

All torque tools – except for manual torque wrenches – require a corresponding torque pump to complete a tightening activity on a flange.

To create a Torque Pump, click the Add icon in the Tools register and the Add Tool window will open.

Nearly all fields are mandatory and so are appended with an asterisk* to signify this.

No default Torque Pump tool Supplier and Models exist in the register so the user must enter and therefore create them manually.

Enter the name of a Supplier and click the Add New Item button as shown below.

Then add a Model and click Add new Item button once more.

New Suppliers and Models will be added to the ‘inventory’ of available tools and for this reason the user is asked to confirm their creation. Click OK when this dialog appears to add the new Supplier/Model to the system.

When creating further torque pumps, these values will display if the user enters the first characters.

Complete the remaining fields (Serial Number, Calibration Number, Certification Expiry) and upload a Calibration Certificate, all in the same way as adding Torque and Tension tools

All tension tools – except for manual torque wrenches – require a corresponding tension pump to complete a tightening activity on a flange.

To create a Tension Pump, click the Add icon in the Tools register and the Add Tool window will open.

No default tension pump tool Suppliers and Models exist in the register so the user must enter and therefore create them manually.

Manually enter the name of a Supplier and click the Add New Item button as shown below.

Then add a Model and click Add new Item button once more.

New Suppliers and Models will be added to the ‘inventory’ of available tools and for this reason the user is asked to confirm their creation. Click OK when this dialog appears to add the new Supplier/Model to the system.

When creating further torque pumps, these Suppliers and Models will display if the user enters the first characters in the respective Supplier and Model fields.

Complete the remaining fields (Serial Number, Calibration Number, Certification Expiry) and upload a Calibration Certificate, all in the same way as adding Torque and Tension tools.

Begin a flange activity by selecting a flange a clicking the Record Activity icon in the main toolbar.

In the activity cycle window which opens, select an activity.

At the top of the activity’s form, choose a Start Date for when the activity is to be carried out.

The chosen date becomes the default date for all preceding activities in the current activity cycle, however the user if free to change this date as applicable for each separate activity in an activity cycle.

The Tag Number of a flange may be changed from within any activity, and the tag new will be updated in the flange register.

Enter a new tag number in the New Tag field.

This new tag will then be displayed the adjacent Current Tag field when the next activity in the cycle is selected.

Upon completing the activity cycle, this Temporary Tag will display in the register.

A minimum of one Technician must be assigned to any activity in order for the activity to be carried out.

Select a Technician from the dropdown lists, Technician 1 being mandatory and so is denoted with *.

For lists containing many technician names, type the name into the Search bar to find technicians easier.

Repeat with the Technician 2 field, if a second technician is required.

The activities Assemble, Inspect, Torque and Tension have optional Inspector fields.

4.3.1 – Creating Personnel within Activity Form

Technicians, Inspectors and Supervisors can be added to the Personnel register from within an activity cycle, and these added personnel may be used immediately for the activity in progress.

Select the Add Technician icon in the top right of the activity form to open the Add Personnel window. Enter the new person’s information as shown below and click OK button to save the technician.

The new technician is now selectable in the current activity.

Inspectors can be added in the same way as shown below.

It is often necessary to edit personnel details within a live activity cycle. For example, a person’s Certificate Expiry date can be updated easily if in a case where it had expired.

This technician’s Certification Expiry date has lapsed, as signified by the “Expired” alert message.

Click the ‘Edit’ (pencil) icon to update any of the person’s details, then click OK to save.

The warning message has now disappeared, and the technician can be used for the activity.

In the example above, the technician’s Certification Expiry date has been validated, however changes to any fields or file attachments can be made this way. Any changes will automatically be refreshed in the Personnel register also.

Every activity has a comments box where users may enter any relevant comments regarding the activity.

Scroll down to the Comments section and enter comments as required.

Comments entered here will display in a few places including in the right-hand-side Info panel and Joint Completion Certificates as shown below.

History panel displaying comments added during an Assemble activity:

Joint Completion Certificate displaying comments for both an Assemble and also for a Torque activity:

The comments box is an optional field for all activities, however, is becomes a mandatory field if an anomaly is noted for an activity.

During an activity cycle, the last activity created may be removed by clicking the Remove Last Activity button. This could be in cases where a change must be made to a flange for the activity cycle to proceed further.

In the example below, the user has begun a Torque activity that the now wish to remove, leaving the joint as being in the state of Assembled.

Clicking the Remove Last Activity button removes the last activity in the cycle, and so in this case the last activity will be Assemble.

The Remove Last Activity button may be clicked again if the user requires to remove the Assemble and even the Disassemble activities in the above cycle. Once an Activity Cycle has been completed and saved however, activities cannot be removed, and so a new activity cycle must be started to make additional changes to the flange.

The Inspect activity is accessible to flanges which are currently in a Disassembled state (or indeed to disassembled flanges which have since also been through a Remachine activity). The date of the inspection will be carried through to certain reports, for example the Flange Sign-off report.

4.8.1 – General Section

The Inspect activity comprises sections:

General section: for recording the general conditions of elements of the flange. Users can enter condition of the flange faces themselves, fasteners and gaskets.

General Condition: general comment of the condition of each upstream and downstream flange.

Further sections Face free from Damage, Face free from Corrosion, Line free from Stress and RTJ Groove Condition may also be applicable depending on the nature of the flange being inspected. Select applicable values from the dropdown menus or click the ‘All Good’ checkbox which set all fields in the section to display ‘OK’.

The Assemble activity can be assessed from any Disassembled flange, or indeed any flange which has been disassembled and then inspected or remachined.

The short General section of the Assemble activity covers the assembly method and the alignment of the two flanges with respect to each and to the pipeline.

The Checks section includes the various fastener elements and whether the correct lubricant has been used.

The final After Fitting Gap section record the distance between the mating flange faces at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock positions around the flanges following assembly. The centrelines of each of the two flanges relative to the pipe centreline are recorded also.

Test Details and Test Results

When a Hydro Test activity is selected, chose the applicable Test Workpack. This will automatically populate the mandatory fields Test Pressure and Test Medium with the values from that Hydro Test workpack’s setup. The remaining fields (Test Method, Test Temperature and Test Duration) are free text which the user must enter manually.

The results of the test can be recorded as either Passed First Time, Fail and Passed after Re-test.

If the Hydro Test has failed, the user should then specify the Reason for Failure from the adjacent options.

The user may select See Comments options also and then detail the reasons in the Comments box below it.

Test Details and Test Results

When a Leak Test activity is selected, chose the applicable Test Workpack. This will automatically populate the mandatory fields Test Pressure and Test Medium with the values from that Leak Test workpack’s setup.

As with Hydro Test, the results of the test can be recorded as either Passed First Time, Fail and Passed after Retest.

If the Leak Test has failed, the user should then specify the Reason for Failure from the adjacent options.

The user may select See Comments options also and then detail the reasons in the Comments box below it.

Select Service Test for a flange which is currently in a state of Assembled as a minimum.

Test Details and Test Results

The section specific to the service Test activity is the General section.

Select the result of the Service Test and then populate the outcomes of the other fields including the service test periods 1 – 3.

Flanges which are in an assembled state (at a minimum) can be Temporary Tightened.

The Temporary Tighten activity is a multi-part activity consisting of:
a) Disassemble
b) Assemble
c) Torque/Tension Tightening ‘sub-activities’, depending on the specification of the flange.

Each of these three sub-activities are required to be completed.

Firstly, complete the Disassemble activity, completing all mandatory fields as a minimum.

Complete the second sub-activity, – the Assemble activity. This sub-activity is an exact duplicate of a normal stand-alone Assemble activity.

Lastly, complete the Tightening section. This tightening sub-activity will be either a torque or a tension activity depending upon the flange’s specification.

Torque sub-activity:

Tension sub-activity:

Once all three sub-activities are complete, the user may click Complete Activity button to save the Temporary Tighten activity.

Edit Spec

During an activity cycle, users are permitted to edit the actual flange specification if a user selects any of the activities: Remachine, Torque or Tension tightening, or indeed a Temporary Tighten activity.

In any of the above activities, click the Edit Spec sub-menu icon which will open the Edit Flange window as below.

Some aspects of the specification – namely the tooling – can be edited this way mid-activity. In the below example the user is changing the torque tool specified for the flange.

After changing the tooling, click the Save icon in the Edit Flange window. The window will close and the activity form will reflect the tool changes made. In the above example, the flange now has a Hytoc – Edge-5 torque tool specified.

Add Tool

Torque and Tension tools, – and also Torque and Tension Pumps, – may be during an activity by clicking the Add Tool sub-menu icon.

Clicking the icon will open the Add Tool window.

Complete all required fields (for Tools, most fields are mandatory) and click OK.

The tool will be added to the Tool Register however it is also immediately available for use in the current activity as shown below.

Add Technician

Technicians, Inspectors and indeed Supervisors can all be added to the Personnel Register from with activity cycles by clicking the Add Technician icon.

Select the discipline of the person you are adding and enter all required details.

In addition to being added to the Personnel Register, the technician is also immediately available for use in the current activity cycle. This is by way of the Enabled checkbox (above image) being selected by default. NOTE: if the user de-selects this checkbox this disables the person – and they will not appear in the dropdown options for Technicians/Inspectors until the user ‘enables’ this checkbox again.

Under some circumstances, multiple flanges can be group-selected and have the same activities carried out upon them together in the same activity cycle.

Group-selected flanges must ALL be in the same activity state (Assembled, Torque/Tension Tightened, Disassembled etc). If selected flanges are at different activity states from each other, a message will display – see image below – if the user attempts to begin an activity cycle with them.

All three flanges in the below image are currently Disassembled.

Group-selecting them by clicking their respective checkboxes and then clicking the Record Activity icon will begin an activity cycle involving all three flanges.

NOTE: the activities Assemble, Disassemble, Remachine and Inspect can invariably all be carried out on grouped flanges in this way, as these activities do not depend upon the flanges having the same specification as each other.

Once any permitted activities are carried out click the Complete Activity button as normal and the register will update the status of all selected flanges.

The flanges in this example above have been Assembled in the same activity cycle and this is reflected in the Status column of the Flange Register.

Tightening activities (both torque and Tension) require the flanges to have identical specifications. If the user attempts to torque/tension flanges of different specifications from each other will display an error message.

In the example image below, the three flanges are all in a Disassembled state which allows them to be Inspected, Remachined and Assembled in the same activity cycle. However, if the user then clicks the Torque activity button, an error message displays the fact that the flanges are of different flange classes and therefore cannot be tightened together in the same cycle.

Similarly, if group-selected flanges are of the same specification but have been designated different tightening tools, with user will receive the same massage, highlighting the fact that they cannot be tightened together.

In the example below, the two selected flanges are both 900lb 12” specifications. They have been disassembled and assembled together, but because they have been assigned different Torque Tool Types, they cannot be tightened together in the same cycle.

To allow the above flanges to be tightened together, the specifications or one or both flanges must be edited so that they are identical.

Document files can be attached to activities using the Upload Document button which is present at the bottom of every activity form.

Scroll to the bottom of any activity, click the Upload Document button and using the browser window which opens, upload a required document file. Supported document types include PDF and Word formats.

The document will display in the Document ‘carousel’ and the Total Documents count will display “1”.

Multiple documents can be added to any activity. Documents are added to the carousel and reviewed by clicking the LEFT/RIGHT arrows as shown below.

Remove documents from the carousel by clicking the Remove Document button. The document currently displaying will be deleted immediately.

Viewing documents attached to activities

Documents added to activities can be reviewed in the History tab on the right-hand side of the screen.

Click the activity to which the document was added and click Open to view the document.

Similar to adding documents, photo files can be added to activities using the Upload Photo button which is present at the bottom of every activity form. Supported photo file types include jpg, png and tiff formats.

Scroll to the bottom of any activity, click the Upload Photo button and using the browser window which opens, upload a required photo file.

In the image below, four image files have been uploaded to this Disassemble activity and display in the photo carousel.

Each photo can be previewed by clicking in the LEFT/RIGHT arrows or by simply clicking on the thumbnail view of the photo.

Remove photos from the carousel by clicking the Remove Photo button. The photo currently being previewed will be deleted immediately.

Viewing photos attached to activities

Photos which have been added to activities can also be reviewed in the History tab on the right-hand side of the screen.

Click the activity to which the photos were added and scroll down to the Photos section.

Clicking the LEFT/RIGHT arrows here also allows the user to view all photos added to the activity.

Anomalies can be added to any activity by selecting the Anomaly checkbox. The anomaly checkbox in the example below is in an Assemble activity.

When the user selects the Anomaly checkbox, the Comments text box title will change to read ‘Anomaly Comments’ as shown below. It will also become a mandatory field, as indicated by the symbol *.

This Anomaly Comments text box now requires the user to input some information regarding the nature of the anomaly in order for the activity to be saved. As can be seen in the image above the Complete Activity button isn’t selectable in the absence of some anomaly comments.

Input a description of the anomaly and the Complete Activity button will become active and can be clicked.

If an anomaly is registered for any activity, adding further activities in the activity cycle is prohibited, and further activity options are un-selectable as in the image below.

The Record Activity window must simply be closed at this point by clicking Complete Activity.

The History tab on the right-hand-side of the screen lists the activities which have been carried out on a selected flange. The Edit icon is disabled by default, however it can be enabled to allow user to edit historical activities.

To enable the Edit icon, open the Project Preferences window and scroll down to the Flange Activities section.

Click directly on the ‘False’ label and change this setting to ON. Then click OK to save this change and the Project Preferences window will close.

The Edit icon in the History tab is now enabled.

Once a tightening activity (Torque or Tension) has been carried out on a flange it’s specification cannot normally be altered. If this is required however, the user can turn on a preference to allow this.

Open Project references as before and click the preference Alter Spec After Tighten to ON.

Click Ok to save this preference change and so now, changes can be made to tightened flanges.

The selected flange below has been Tightened, but it’s specification can now be edited and saved.

By default, a torque or tension tool must have a valid Calibration Certificate for it to created and to be used in activities. The asterisk * denotes this as a mandatory field in the Add Tool/Edit Tool window.

When performing a torque or tension activity on a flange(s), the calibration certificate symbol displays as shown below. The certificate can actually be viewed by clicking on this icon.

The requirement for tools to have calibration certificates can be turned OFF using the Require Calibration Certificates setting.

To do this, open the Project Preferences window and change the Require Calibration Certificate setting from True to False, then click OK.

Calibration certificates are now no longer mandatory for tools, as shown by the absence of the asterisk in the image below.

Importantly, this means that tightening tools which do not have calibration certificates can still be used to tighten flanges.

This LAPP UK torque tool for example has no calibration certificate however this Torque activity can still be saved.

By default, a technician whose certificate has expired will still be included in the dropdown list of technicians during any flange activity cycle.

For example, this technician’s certificate has expired:

They are however still listed in the activity forms, but they cannot be used to complete any activities, as indicated by the Expired label shown below:

To remove expired personnel from activity dropdowns such as this, open Project Preferences and set the Exclude Expired Technicians preference to True and click OK.

While this preference is set to True, any expired technicians are excluded from activity personnel dropdown lists.

While carrying out a Tension activity on a flange(s), a serial number for the selected Tensioner tool is required by default. The mandatory serial number is indicated by the asterisk on the Tension activity form as shown below.

The serial number can however be made non-mandatory if required. For example, certain Tension tools may have no serial numbers.

To make the serial numbers non-mandatory, open the Project Preferences window and change the Non-mandatory Tensioner Serial Number setting to True and click OK.

With this preference now set to True, a serial number is no longer required to use any tensioner tools in activities. As shown below, the red asterisk ‘mandatory’ asterisk no longer displays.

Historical activities, – Flange and Operational – can be viewed by selecting them in the History tab.

Single-click the activity and in the panels below will be displayed:
– an Activity Log which shows which user created the activity and on what date
– the full Activity Details themselves, divided into sub-sections.

Use the right-hand-side scrollbar to scroll down the activity sub-sections.

Flange activities differ from Operational Activities and they including flange creation, and the creation & editing of flange specifications.

The Flange Activity below, – “Flange Spec Modified” – displays modifications made to a flange’s specification.

If the Edit Historical Activities project preference has been set to True, operational flange activities can be edited and the changes can be saved.

Select an historical activity and click the Edit icon.

The Edit Activity window will open. Users can change and save most aspects of the activity. For example, in the historical Torque activity below, the user is renewing the Certificate Expiry date of the Technician 1, which is currently expired.

Further down the same historical Torque activity, the user is adding a Torque Pump in the image below.

Once all required changes have been made to the form, click the OK button and the form will close.

The History tab on the right-hand-side will now reflect the changes made to the activity.

Completion Certificates for joints can be generated from the Reports menu icon.

Select an individual flange and then in the reports menu, click JCC (Selected).

The single-page report will generate and display automatically.

This MS Word format document can be saved to any location.

To generate a batch of JCC Reports for multiple flanges, use the left-hand-side checkboxes (highlighted in green below) to select the flanges of interest and click JCC Report (Selected).

One MS Word file is generated containing all the selected flanges.

If a single JCC report is required for all flanges in the current register, the JCC Grid option outputs this in a single action.

There’s no need to select any flanges, but simply click the JCC Grid option from the reports menu and the report will be generated and displayed.

This grid version of reports has uses include for example if a user filters the Flange Register for certain joint features of interest and requires JCC reports for all of them.

In the image below, the user has used the Column Filter to filter only for flanges of Flange Size 2.1/2”. Selecting JCC Grid will now generate a JCC report for all results in this filtered flange register.