This publication API BULL 1178:2024 offers a comprehensive guide to the integration methodologies and considerations for supporting integrity management. While any single approach, or even the entire document, may not be suitable or applicable in all situations, it reviews potential strategies that operators can consider in light of their unique circumstances.

The primary focus of this publication is on the methods and processes used to spatially integrate and standardize data to support the application of comparative techniques used in interpreting integrity data, with a particular emphasis on in-line inspection (ILI) data. It begins by discussing general data quality processes, goals, and considerations so that data quality approaches can be considered within the context of data integration processes.

One significant barrier to informed integrity decisions is the inability to efficiently review a broad range of data in a format that has been normalized and spatially aligned. Given the variations in organizational structures, integrity management programs, and technologies used across the pipeline sector, individual operators design data integration procedures that are tailored to their specific organizational structure, processes, and pipeline systems.