Asset integrity is the ability of an industrial asset—such as a pressure vessel, pipeline, or structural component—to perform its required function effectively and safely, without posing risks to people, the environment, or operations.
In heavy industries like Oil & Gas and mining, maintaining asset integrity is key to preventing failures, avoiding unplanned shutdowns, and meeting regulatory requirements.
A single compromised asset can lead to unplanned outages, resulting in lost production, as well as safety incidents or environmental harm—each of which carries steep financial and reputational costs.
That’s why asset integrity isn’t just a compliance issue. It’s a core operational priority.
Inspection professionals play a central role in ensuring asset integrity.
Through routine inspections, non-destructive testing (NDT), and continuous monitoring, they help identify material degradation, corrosion, and other failure mechanisms before they escalate. Their work enables maintenance teams to make informed decisions about repairs, replacements, or continued operation.
As industrial assets become more complex and regulatory scrutiny intensifies, many organizations are adopting advanced technologies to improve their asset integrity programs. Among the most transformative of these technologies are inspection drones.
Drones make it possible to collect high-quality inspection data from hard-to-reach or hazardous areas—like tall stacks, confined spaces, or live process units—without scaffolding, rope access, or plant shutdowns. They reduce exposure for personnel, speed up inspections, and provide more consistent data for decision-making.
This guide to asset integrity offers a practical, comprehensive overview of what it is, how to manage it, and how modern inspection technologies like drones are reshaping its future.
Use the menu to the left to jump around, or keep reading for the full guide.
Asset integrity ensures that equipment operates as designed—without failure—under normal and abnormal conditions.
Defined more formally, asset integrity is the ability of an industrial asset to perform its intended function effectively and safely, while protecting health, the environment, and the people who work around it.
But asset integrity isn’t static—and it’s not a single event or inspection. Rather, it’s a continuous process that begins during the design phase and extends through the entire lifecycle of an asset.
Let’s take a closer look at what lifecycle means in this context.
Managing asset integrity means maintaining the fitness-for-service of equipment from start to finish.
This spans everything from the first imagining of the asset through to regularly maintaining it while in use, all the way to taking it offline at the end of its life.
Here are the key lifecycle stages of an asset:
Each phase plays a role in preserving the structural and functional integrity of the asset and avoiding costly or dangerous failures.
Asset integrity isn’t just a good idea. It’s also often mandated by regulatory and industry standards.
Key frameworks include:
This is just a jumping off point—there are several other guidelines for asset integrity in different industries and different parts of the world.
Guidelines like these help standardize practices across industries and ensure inspections, maintenance, and documentation meet accepted norms.
In sectors like Oil & Gas and power generation, asset integrity efforts typically focus on critical pressure and structural assets like:
These assets operate under high pressure, temperature, or environmental exposure—making their integrity essential to safe and reliable plant operations.
In industrial operations, asset integrity and asset reliability are often discussed together—but they’re not the same thing.
Asset integrity refers to the physical condition of an asset: Is it structurally sound? Free from defects? Safe to operate? This includes factors like corrosion, cracking, wall loss, and weld quality. An asset with high integrity poses no immediate risk to safety, the environment, or operations.
Asset reliability, on the other hand, focuses on performance: Does the asset function as expected over time? Is it available when needed? Does it operate without unplanned interruptions?
Think of it this way:
Both integrity and reliability are essential to maintaining safe, cost-effective operations—especially in asset-heavy industries like Oil & Gas and power generation.
But integrity comes first.
If an asset isn’t structurally sound, it’s unsafe—regardless of how reliably it performs. That’s why inspection teams often prioritize integrity through visual, ultrasonic, or other NDT methods. Once an asset is confirmed to be physically intact, attention can shift to ensuring it runs reliably.
Advanced inspection tools like drones enhance both asset integrity and reliability.
For example, a drone like the Voliro T equipped with ultrasonic sensors can detect early wall thinning in a pressure vessel—information that allows maintenance teams to take corrective action before failure occurs. This protects the integrity of the vessel and ensures it remains reliable during future operations.
[Insert picture of Voliro T w/ UT sensor]
By catching issues earlier and reducing inspection times, inspection drones give engineers the data they need to manage risk and maintain uptime—without compromising safety.
Asset Integrity Management (AIM) is the structured process of ensuring that industrial assets continue to operate safely, reliably, and in compliance with regulations throughout their lifecycle. It encompasses strategies, procedures, technologies, and personnel that work together to preserve the structural integrity, performance, and safety of equipment.
AIM is especially critical in industries like Oil & Gas, petrochemicals, and power generation, where asset failure can result in environmental harm, safety incidents, and unplanned downtime.
Compliance frameworks like the ones we listed above—API 580 and 581, ISO 55000, and OSHA safety standards—guide AIM implementation and emphasize lifecycle-focused asset oversight.
Asset integrity management spans the entire lifecycle of an asset, from design to decommissioning. Each phase plays a critical role in reducing risk and maintaining uptime.
We listed the five lifecycle stages above—here we’ll go into a little more detail to highlight their role in AIM.
1. Design and Material Selection
Asset integrity begins at the design stage. Selecting corrosion-resistant materials, specifying wall thickness, and engineering for fatigue resistance help prevent long-term degradation.
2. Operation and Monitoring
During operation, continuous monitoring (e.g., pressure, vibration, temperature) detects deviations from normal performance. This data is essential for early detection of developing issues.
3. Inspection and Maintenance
Regular inspections (visual, ultrasonic, PEC, etc.) ensure physical condition is aligned with performance expectations. Maintenance activities—both scheduled and responsive—address wear, corrosion, or mechanical damage.
4. Repair and Mitigation
When degradation or damage is identified, repairs must be executed according to standards. This may include welding, part replacement, or temporary mitigation strategies until shutdown.
5. Decommissioning
At end-of-life, decommissioning ensures assets are safely removed or repurposed in compliance with environmental and safety regulations.
Successful AIM programs are built on proactive strategies:
Drones enhance asset integrity management by making inspections faster, safer, and more repeatable—without sacrificing data quality.
They are particularly valuable in high-risk or hard-to-access environments, such as those that would require confined space entry, rope access, or scaffolding for NDT data collection.
Here are the top benefits of using drones for AIM:
Use Case: Drone-Based Stack Inspection in Oil & Gas
In a refinery, the Voliro T inspection drone was used to perform ultrasonic and pulsed eddy current inspections on a 400-foot stack. Traditional methods would have required scaffolding or rope access, costing upwards of $165,000 and taking weeks.
With the drone, the inspection was completed in 1.5 days with a crew of just two, providing actionable data while the plant remained operational. Using the drone not only ensured structural integrity but also preserved production uptime—underscoring the real-world impact of drone-enabled AIM.
Asset integrity in Oil and Gas is critical to ensure safe operations, protect personnel, and comply with regulatory requirements. But maintaining integrity in this sector is especially complex due to the nature of its operations.
Oil and Gas assets often operate under extreme conditions: exposure to corrosive chemicals, high operating pressures, fluctuating temperatures, and challenging environments like offshore platforms. And these conditions accelerate material degradation.
Many Oil and Gas facilities also operate with aging infrastructure—pressure vessels, tanks, and piping systems that have been in service for decades. Managing asset integrity in these contexts requires detailed inspection planning and prioritization.
For these reasons, the Oil and Gas sector is heavily regulated, making asset integrity more complex. Operators must comply with a web of national and international standards, which demand frequent inspection, rigorous documentation, and transparent risk management practices. Failing to meet these standards can result in operational shutdowns, environmental incidents, or even legal repercussions.
Several asset classes in Oil and Gas require routine and detailed inspection:
Each of these assets poses safety and environmental risks if not inspected and maintained regularly.
Oil and Gas assets are vulnerable to several degradation mechanisms, including:
These issues can lead to leaks, ruptures, or catastrophic failure if left unaddressed—making early detection and ongoing monitoring essential to maintaining integrity.
Inspection and integrity programs in Oil and Gas are governed by well-established standards, including:
These standards guide inspection frequency, methods, documentation, and risk assessment protocols. Adherence ensures regulatory compliance and supports responsible asset stewardship.
Modern drone systems provide critical advantages for maintaining asset integrity in Oil and Gas:
Drones are increasingly used for both routine monitoring and turnaround inspections, helping asset integrity teams reduce costs, improve safety, and keep plants running smoothly.
By integrating drone technology into their workflows, asset integrity engineers in Oil and Gas can inspect more thoroughly, more frequently, and with far fewer risks to personnel and operations.
An asset integrity engineer is responsible for ensuring that critical infrastructure and equipment perform their intended functions safely, reliably, and in compliance with applicable standards—throughout their operational lifecycle.
Their job isn’t just about identifying defects. It’s about managing risk, enabling uptime, and ensuring that each asset—from pressure vessels to pipelines—operates without compromising safety or the environment.
Asset integrity engineers play a central role in industrial inspection programs. They bridge the gap between data collection, engineering analysis, and operational decision-making—making them essential to any modern Asset Integrity Management (AIM) program.
The work of an asset integrity engineer spans planning, analysis, compliance, and collaboration.
Here are their key area of responsibility:
Asset integrity engineers must combine technical depth with regulatory fluency and cross-functional coordination.
Key skill sets include:
The asset integrity engineer’s toolkit has evolved with digitalization and remote inspection technologies:
In high-consequence industries, asset integrity engineers serve as both technical experts and strategic decision-makers—ensuring safe, cost-effective operations while extending asset life.
Their work is increasingly enhanced by technologies like drones and digital inspection tools, helping them cover more ground with greater accuracy and speed.
An asset integrity framework is a formalized structure that outlines the processes, standards, tools, and responsibilities necessary to ensure that critical industrial assets remain safe, functional, and compliant throughout their lifecycle.
Unlike asset integrity management, which refers to the ongoing execution of tasks (inspections, maintenance, risk assessments), a framework provides the strategic foundation. It defines how integrity will be maintained—establishing the who, what, when, and why of asset inspection and decision-making.
In asset-heavy industries like Oil & Gas, mining, and power generation, failure of a single asset—like a pressure vessel, tank, or flare stack—can lead to major safety incidents, regulatory violations, and costly downtime.
A well-structured asset integrity framework ensures:
Without a framework, even a well-staffed team can struggle with misaligned priorities, missed inspections, or inconsistent data.
A successful asset integrity framework includes:
Voliro’s inspection drones, for example, are increasingly integrated into modern frameworks to replace scaffolding-based inspections—enabling visual, UT, and PEC data collection from stacks, tanks, and piping in a single flight.
Even mature integrity programs can struggle without a structured framework.
The three most common issues are:
1. Data silos
Disconnected data across teams or software systems can delay decisions and obscure critical insights.
2. Outdated inspection methods
Overreliance on manual or access-heavy inspection techniques increases cost, safety risk, and turnaround time.
3. Lack of training or procedural gaps
Inconsistent application of standards or poorly defined responsibilities can lead to missed inspections or regulatory non-compliance.
A strong asset integrity framework doesn’t just guide inspections—it protects uptime, ensures safety, and aligns engineering with long-term operational goals.
Asset integrity software is a specialized digital tool designed to ensure that critical industrial assets—such as pressure vessels, pipelines, and storage tanks—operate safely, reliably, and in compliance with regulatory standards throughout their lifecycle.
By integrating data collection, analysis, and maintenance planning, this software enables organizations to proactively manage asset health, minimize downtime, and optimize inspection processes.
Effective asset integrity software provides several key functionalities:
Here are some of the most commonly used platforms in the industry for asset integrity management:
Modern asset integrity software often integrates with drone-based inspection platforms, enhancing data collection and analysis, providing:
It’s also important to note that there are several advanced technologies that are starting to see wider adoption, and driving major change in how asset integrity is performed.
These technologies include:
Here are answers to the most commonly asked questions about asset integrity.
What is asset integrity?
Asset integrity is the ability of an asset to perform its intended function effectively and safely throughout its operational life. It involves maintaining the structural soundness and operational reliability of equipment while minimizing risks to people, the environment, and operations. Asset integrity management is essential for preventing failures, ensuring compliance, and extending the lifespan of critical infrastructure.
How do you ensure asset integrity?
Asset integrity is maintained through a combination of inspections, risk-based inspection (RBI) strategies, condition monitoring, and preventive maintenance. Teams use data from NDT methods, sensor-based systems, and historical records to assess asset condition and schedule timely repairs. Compliance with industry standards like API 580 and ISO 55000 also supports effective asset integrity management.
What do asset integrity engineers do?
Asset integrity engineers define inspection scopes, analyze inspection and condition data, and make recommendations for maintenance or repair. They ensure compliance with asset integrity frameworks and collaborate across inspection, maintenance, and reliability teams. Their work helps ensure that critical assets remain safe, functional, and regulatory-compliant throughout their lifecycle.
What is asset reliability vs integrity?
Asset integrity refers to the physical condition and safety of an asset, while asset reliability describes its ability to perform consistently without failure. Integrity ensures the structure is sound—free from corrosion, cracks, or leaks—whereas reliability ensures the asset operates as expected over time. Both are essential for operational safety and efficiency.
What industries need asset integrity programs?
Industries that operate high-value, high-risk assets rely on asset integrity programs. These include Oil & Gas, power generation, chemical processing, maritime, and mining. In these sectors, maintaining asset integrity reduces risk, prevents unplanned outages, and ensures compliance with safety and environmental regulations.
What’s the difference between NDT and asset integrity?
Non-destructive testing (NDT) refers to inspection methods used to evaluate the condition of materials or structures without causing damage. Asset integrity is the broader strategy that uses NDT—along with monitoring, data analysis, and maintenance—to ensure assets remain safe and functional over time. NDT is a vital tool within asset integrity management.
How can drones improve asset integrity?
Drone inspection improves asset integrity by enabling safer, faster, and more frequent assessments of critical infrastructure. Drones like the Voliro T can access hard-to-reach or hazardous areas without scaffolding or rope access and collect high-quality visual, UT, or PEC data. This helps identify early signs of degradation, reducing downtime and supporting more proactive asset integrity management.
Learn more about how the Voliro can help you with asset integrity. Schedule a demo now.
