Building blocks of a successful corrosion management plan

Lowering corrosion-related costs in a company takes more than technology; it requires a change in how corrosion decisions are made within an organization.

Corrosion decisions and practices need to be integrated within an organization’s management system and then be translated into the language of the broader organization with buy-in from all employee levels.

Purpose for Buy-in per Employee Level

Senior Management

• To gain approval to make the change 

• To garner sponsorship and resources

Middle Management

• To speed up adoption

• To identify change agents to lead by example

Front-line Employees

• To develop a common understanding of the change

• To ensure widespread adoption and compliance

In other words, success requires a commitment to putting a Corrosion Management System (CMS) or plan into a management context — which means justifying corrosion control actions by business impact.

Corrosion professionals – corrosion, integrity, risk, and maintenance managers – those most likely to be the change agents for how corrosion decisions are made, must be fluent in the language of management systems to facilitate business case communications between all employee levels.

Specifically, to create the foundation required for change to take root and the benefits of a successful corrosion management plan to be realized, the following three steps are critical:

1. Broaden business tool competence

Financial decision-making, risk assessment, and management system knowledge should be in the corrosion professional’s tool kit. Use of financial and risk assessment tools should be a normal and expected activity for evaluating corrosion control expenditures. Whenever relevant and possible, life cycle costing should be considered.

2. Stay away from corrosion technical speak

Communication between those inside and outside of the corrosion profession should be in the language of the external decision-maker (e.g., operations or business manager; regulatory or policy stakeholder) with the goal of business improvement.

3. Include CMS in your overall management system

To institutionalize a CMS, organizations should develop, integrate, and implement corrosion management elements into their overall management systems. This includes, adopting a framework (guidelines) for facilitating its inclusion and defining expectations of standard practice for corrosion management (benchmark).

The preceding is from a global NACE International® IMPACT Study (International Measures of Prevention, Application, & Economics of Corrosion Technologies), published in 2016, that was initiated to examine the current role of corrosion management in industry and government and to establish best practices.

Get assistance with changing how corrosion control decisions are made in your organization. Learn about IMPACT PLUS^®, an innovative product developed in response to the NACE IMPACT Study and the challenges faced by industry in putting a CMS into a management context.

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