What actually determines inspection priority? A free scoring tool to see it in practice

Risk-based inspection prioritisation sounds like a black box from the outside, but the underlying logic is not actually complicated - it just isn't visible unless you're already running a formal programme. We built a free Inspection Priority Score Estimator so anyone can see how a small number of factors combine into a relative priority score, in under a minute.

The five factors that do most of the work#

Across most risk-based inspection frameworks, five categories of information carry most of the signal: how old the asset is relative to its design life, how susceptible its construction and materials are to known defect classes, how severe the consequences would be if it failed given what's nearby, how long it has been since the last inspection, and whether it has a documented history of anomalies or repairs.

Our tool asks you to rate each of those five factors as low, medium, or high for a hypothetical or real asset, then computes an illustrative combined score.

Why history counts double#

Of the five factors, a documented history of anomalies or repairs is typically the single strongest predictor that an asset deserves closer attention - past behaviour is a more direct signal than proxies like age or consequence area alone. The estimator reflects that by weighting history roughly twice as heavily as the other four factors when it computes the combined score, which maps to one of four illustrative bands from Low to Critical priority.

Pipeline segment or refinery equipment - same logic#

The tool works the same way whether you're describing a stretch of pipeline or a fired heater, pressure vessel, or storage tank on a refinery site. The five-factor structure isn't asset-specific; it reflects how risk-based prioritisation reasoning works in general, which is exactly why it's a useful thing to make tangible rather than leave locked inside a formal RBI system.

What it isn't#

This is an educational demonstration, not a substitute for a formal risk-based inspection programme built on your actual asset data and the applicable codes and standards for your industry. If it helps clarify how prioritisation should work, but you need the real, defensible version for your network or site, talk to us about what that would look like.