The Hidden Costs of Reviewing P&IDs: Time, Effort, and Accuracy

One of the most challenging tasks for maintenance and engineering teams is to review Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams (P&IDs) to ensure maintainable items are properly recorded in an Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) or Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS). At first glance, the process seems straightforward as the job at hand is to identify all maintainable assets, verify their existence in the system, and to ensure the details are accurate. However, this task often becomes both labor-intensive and prone to error. This manual process comes with substantial hidden costs, which drains time, money, and resources, all while putting operational efficiency and compliance at risk. 

The Manual Effort Trap: Why This Task Takes So Much Time

P&IDs are essential blueprints for facilities which illustrate the connections between piping systems and critical maintainable equipment such as pumps, valves, compressors, heat exchangers, and more. To align this information with an EAM/CMMS system, maintenance teams often rely on manual methods. This process typically involves:

1. Line-by-Line Analysis: Reviewing P&IDs to identify each piece of maintainable equipment.
2. Cross-Referencing: Matching the identified assets with the EAM/CMMS database to confirm they are accurately recorded.
3. Updating Records: Correcting any errors in asset metadata, Functional Locations (FLOCs), or hierarchy.

For medium or large facilities, this process can take weeks to even months. In addition, the work is repetitive and prone to human error. A single missed asset or misclassified component could lead to future operational issues. When teams are overwhelmed with manual reviews, they have less time to focus on preventive maintenance, asset reliability improvements, or long-term planning. The cost is not just in lost time—it’s in lost opportunities.

The Accuracy Problem: How Small Errors Snowball

Even small errors in asset data can have a disproportionate impact on operations. For instance:

• A misclassified valve may result in an incorrect preventive maintenance (PM) schedule, leading to premature failure.
• A missing pump in the CMMS may leave it excluded from inventory and maintenance plans, causing delays when it needs repairs.
• A Functional Location (FLOC) mismatch could confuse technicians, which could prolong downtime during critical repairs.

These inaccuracies create a cascade of inefficiencies, which increase downtime, raises costs, and undermines safety as a result. The issue is even more severe in industries such as oil and gas, where equipment failures can have severe financial, environmental, and regulatory consequences.

Brownfield Data Challenges: Fixing Decades of Neglect

Brownfield facilities face unique challenges when it comes to data accuracy. As systems are expanded or repaired over time, changes to physical assets often go unrecorded. Teams who work with outdated P&IDs may be unaware of new installations, decommissioned equipment, or on-the-ground changes that were not previously documented. These data gaps compound the manual review process, which makes it more difficult to reconcile the P&IDs with the actual facility and its EAM/CMMS records. For example:

• Outdated P&IDs may show equipment that no longer exists.
• Unrecorded installations may leave maintainable items missing from the system.
• Functional Location hierarchies may be inconsistent or incomplete.

With inaccurate or incomplete brownfield data, maintenance teams waste valuable time searching for assets, troubleshooting discrepancies, or relying on workarounds. As a result, this increases downtime and ultimately puts compliance at risk.

The Bigger Picture: Operational and Financial Costs

The hidden costs of manual P&ID reviews aren’t just about time or money—they’re about the broader impact on the business. Outdated or inaccurate asset data can lead to:

• Increased Downtime: Missing or misclassified assets delay repairs and maintenance.
• Higher Costs: Manual work and inefficiencies add up over time.
• Compliance Risks: Incorrect records may result in regulatory penalties or unsafe working conditions.

For organizations that rely on manual methods, the future looks increasingly challenging. As facilities grow and systems become more complex, the need for accurate, scalable, and reliable data management becomes even more critical. It’s clear that the current approach is unsustainable. In the next blog, we’ll explore how digitalization and automation can transform this process and eliminate these pain points.

How Can We Help You? HubHead and DataSeer’s AI Service combines human-level understanding with machine speed to build a scalable knowledge data store of engineering designs. By integrating these solutions with your existing EAM/CMMS systems and creating a digital twin, you can enhance decision-making and streamline your maintenance processes. Contact us for a free demo or book a call.