Emerging Skills Program — no certification exam
Integrity Operating Windows (IOW) & Corrosion Control Documents (CCD)
Set the operating limits that keep a unit inside its design envelope, and write the corrosion control document that tells operations what to do when it drifts.
Why this matters
The problem this solves
Most units run outside at least one of their operating windows without anyone noticing, because nobody wrote the windows down in a form an operator could act on.
API RP 584 defines an Integrity Operating Window and API RP 970 defines the Corrosion Control Document that carries it. Neither is a certification. Both are documents somebody in your organisation actually has to write, and that is what this programme teaches.
The work runs from a real unit. Participants build the IOW set and the CCD for it across three days and leave with the documents, not with notes about the documents. The failure mode being designed out is the common one: a limit that exists in an engineer’s spreadsheet and nowhere an operator will ever look.
Before you enrol
Is this a certification?
The short answer is no, and it is worth being explicit about it rather than leaving it to be discovered later.
What this programme gives you
- Three days of instruction from engineers who write these documents for operators
- A worked IOW set and CCD built during the programme
- Document templates you can take into your own organisation
- An EIM certificate of completion
What it does not
- Not preparation for a certification exam — no certifying body examines this subject
- No API, AMPP or CSWIP credential at the end
- Not a substitute for API 571 or API 580 if your employer requires one of those
- Not a software implementation — the documents are the deliverable, not a tool
If you need a recognised credential, start at certification exam preparation.
Who it's for
Roles this is built around
Corrosion engineers
3+ years
Owning the damage mechanism review and the monitoring plan for a unit.
Process engineers
Operating side
Setting, and then defending, the limits operations are asked to hold.
Inspection supervisors
Any level
Turning inspection findings into a limit somebody can actually operate to.
What it covers
The outline
An outline, not a weighted Body of Knowledge — nobody publishes weights for a subject with no exam behind it.
Why windows exist
The failures that produced API RP 584, and what a window is actually for.
The damage mechanism review
Establishing which mechanisms are credible on the unit before any limit is set.
Setting the limits
Critical, standard and informational limits, and who owns the response to each.
Writing the CCD
API RP 970 structure, and the sections that get skipped and then matter.
Exceedance and escalation
What happens in the hour after a limit is crossed, and who decides.
Keeping it alive
Review triggers, feedstock changes, and why most IOW sets are dead within two years.
Outcomes
What you will be able to do
- Build a defensible IOW set for a process unit from its damage mechanism review
- Distinguish critical, standard and informational limits, and assign an owner to each
- Write a Corrosion Control Document to the API RP 970 structure
- Define an exceedance response that operations can actually follow at three in the morning
- Integrate an IOW set with an existing RBI programme without duplicating it
- Recognise when a feedstock or turnaround change has invalidated the existing windows
Standards referenced
What the programme works from
| Standard | What we use it for | Note |
|---|---|---|
| API RP 584 | Integrity Operating Windows | The primary reference |
| API RP 970 | Corrosion Control Documents | — |
| API RP 571 | Damage Mechanisms Affecting Fixed Equipment | Used for the DMR step |
| API RP 580 | Risk-Based Inspection | Where the IOW set feeds the RBI programme |
How it runs
Ways to take it
Formats offered — not scheduled dates. Live cohort dates live on the course page, so there is only ever one copy of a date.
| Format | Duration | Group size | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live online | 3 days | Up to 15 | Split across sessions rather than run as consecutive full days |
| In-house | By arrangement | 6–20 | Delivered against your own equipment, your own findings and your own procedures |
FAQs
Questions people ask first
No. API RP 584 is a recommended practice, not a certification scheme, and API’s Individual Certification Program has no exam for it. The competency is real and in demand; the credential does not exist.
No, though the two work well together. An IOW set is built from a damage mechanism review, which is also the foundation of RBI — so teams that have done RBI properly already have most of the input. Teams that have not can still build a working IOW set.
Yes, and it is the better version. Delivered in-house the programme works from your own P&IDs, your own damage mechanism review and your own inspection history, so what you leave with is a real draft rather than a worked example.
Want the full outline?
Tell us your role and what you are trying to fix, and we will send the programme outline and what it would take to run it for your team.