verification management systems
verification management systems
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  • More
    • Home
    • What we do
    • Why VMS
    • Meet the team
    • Equipment Types
    • Management Engagement
    • Services
      • End-To-End Management
      • Verification Software
      • NPT Tracking
      • Supplier Assesment
      • Personnel Assesment
      • Assets Under Registration
  • Home
  • What we do
  • Why VMS
  • Meet the team
  • Equipment Types
  • Management Engagement
  • Services
    • End-To-End Management
    • Verification Software
    • NPT Tracking
    • Supplier Assesment
    • Personnel Assesment
    • Assets Under Registration

The True Cost of Temporary Equipment NPT

The average offshore drilling rig experiences 27 days of unplanned downtime annually, resulting in about $38 million in losses. Operating costs for modern offshore rigs can be $800K USD or more a day. When temporary equipment-related NPT strikes, the costs are not limited to the rig day rate — they cascade across: Rig Spread Rate, Standby charges, Emergency logistics, Knock-on delays, Contractor penalties. A single rejected lifting sling or out of date HA component can add hours, days of downtim

The Temporary Equipment Challenge

Offshore drilling operations rely heavily on temporary and third-party rental equipment — from specialist downhole tools and BOP components to lifting gear, pressure testing apparatus, cementing units, and intervention equipment. Unlike permanent rig equipment, temporary assets introduce a unique and often underestimated layer of NPT risk.

Offshore oil and gas platforms operate some of the most capital-intensive equipment in any industry, with equipment constantly moving between platforms, supply vessels, onshore warehouses and maintenance yards, creating a logistics challenge that compounds with every transfer. 


When any of these temporary items arrive on deck uncertified, incompatible, damaged, or undocumented, drilling stops — and the cost clock starts ticking. Research has shown that approximately 42% of NPT can be attributed to equipment failure or waiting for surface tools, marking it as the leading cause of time loss. A significant proportion of this relates directly to temporary and third-party supplied equipment. 

WHY TEMPORARY EQUIPMENT CAUSES DISPROPORTIONATE NPT

Unlike rig-owned equipment that sits within established maintenance regimes, temporary equipment introduces several compounding risk factors:  

1. Certification & Compliance Gaps

Temporary equipment often arrives from multiple vendors with varying standards of documentation. Non-compliant equipment goes undetected when maintenance records are fragmented across paper systems. The consequences of a safety failure in an offshore environment extend far beyond financial penalties. Compliance failures compound across a project's lifetime when tracking is manual and inconsistent. Each missed inspection creates a documentation gap that is difficult to close retrospectively. 

2. Multi-Vendor, Multi-Contractor Complexity

Shared logistical and supply chain dependencies — including common mud supply vessels, crane operations, and third-party service providers — can create correlated waiting-on-equipment (WOE) and maintenance (MAIN) NPT events when a single supply disruption propagates across multiple rigs simultaneously. 

3. Lack of Visibility on Equipment History

Without a reliable tracking system, operators lose visibility over assets the moment they leave the dock or the deck. The consequences of poor equipment visibility offshore are immediate and costly. A temporary tool arriving without a verifiable maintenance history, valid load test certificate, or calibration record cannot be used — and the rig waits. 

4. No Redundancy

As industry experts have noted, permanent rig equipment often has built-in redundancy — "if a pump fails, we've got other pumps." But specialist temporary equipment typically has no backup on board. When a single rented item fails or is rejected at the rig, the entire operation can grind to a halt waiting for a replacement. 

5. Delayed Mobilisation & Logistics

Offshore equipment requires high reliability to minimise cost of operation and downtime due to failure. Providing high quality equipment and services for offshore operations has to be done right the first time. This requires rigorous planning, inspection processes, and dedication to quality control. Replacement temporary equipment must be sourced, inspected, certified, and transported — often taking days, not hours. 

How VMS Tracks and Reduces Temporary Equipment NPT

Our Story

 VMS provides both skill-set and purpose-built digital framework for managing the entire lifecycle of temporary equipment on your site installations — from pre-mobilisation verification through to demobilisation and return. 

Pre-Mobilisation Verification Gateway

VMS creates a digital checkpoint for every piece of temporary equipment before it is approved for deployment offshore. The system validates:

  • Current certification status (load test, pressure test, calibration, NDT)
  • Vendor compliance records and approved supplier status
  • Equipment compatibility with rig-specific requirements
  • Complete maintenance and inspection history

Result: Equipment that doesn't meet your standards never leaves the dock — eliminating the most common cause of temporary equipment NPT: rejection at the rig floor. 

Quantify exactly how much temporary equipment costs you.

 When temporary equipment does cause downtime, VMS captures the event in real time and categorises it by:

  • Equipment type (lifting, pressure, drilling tools, intervention, etc.)
  • Vendor / supplier responsible
  • Root cause (certification lapse, mechanical failure, wrong specification, late delivery, damage in transit)
  • Duration and financial impact (calculated against live rig rate)

Result: You build a comprehensive, auditable database of temporary equipment NPT — broken down by vendor, equipment type, and cause — enabling data-driven procurement and vendor management decisions.

Equipment RELEASE

 Every temporary asset gets a single source of truth.  When location data is integrated with a centralised asset management platform, it becomes one data point alongside maintenance history, compliance status, calibration dates and assignment records, giving operators a single view of every asset.   Result: Rig crews can verify any piece of temporary equipment instantly, with full confidence in its status — no phone calls, no searching through paper files, no waiting.

Vendor Performance Scorecards

Certification Expiry & Re-Inspection Alerts

Certification Expiry & Re-Inspection Alerts

Hold your supply chain accountable.

VMS aggregates temporary equipment NPT data across your entire fleet and produces vendor performance dashboards showing:

  • NPT hours attributable to each vendor
  • Equipment rejection rates at mobilisation
  • Certification compliance rates
  • Mean time to replacement for failed items
  • Cost impact per vendor, per equipmen

Hold your supply chain accountable.

VMS aggregates temporary equipment NPT data across your entire fleet and produces vendor performance dashboards showing:

  • NPT hours attributable to each vendor
  • Equipment rejection rates at mobilisation
  • Certification compliance rates
  • Mean time to replacement for failed items
  • Cost impact per vendor, per equipment category

Result: Objective, data-driven evidence to support vendor selection, contract negotiations, and supply chain optimisation. 

Certification Expiry & Re-Inspection Alerts

Certification Expiry & Re-Inspection Alerts

Certification Expiry & Re-Inspection Alerts

Never be caught out by a lapsed certificate.

Safety-critical equipment delivers the highest compliance return because it carries non-negotiable inspection schedules and regulatory penalties for lapses. VMS continuously monitors the certification status of all temporary equipment deployed across your rigs and provides:

  • Automated expiry alert

Never be caught out by a lapsed certificate.

Safety-critical equipment delivers the highest compliance return because it carries non-negotiable inspection schedules and regulatory penalties for lapses. VMS continuously monitors the certification status of all temporary equipment deployed across your rigs and provides:

  • Automated expiry alerts at 90, 60, 30, and 7-day intervals
  • Escalation notifications to onshore operations teams
  • Proactive re-inspection scheduling with approved vendors
  • Automatic equipment quarantine if certification lapses

Result: Zero surprises. Equipment is re-certified or replaced before its status becomes a compliance risk or an NPT event.

Mobilisation & Demobilisation Tracking

Certification Expiry & Re-Inspection Alerts

Trend Analysis & Predictive Intelligence

Full chain of custody, from dock to deck and back.

An asset transferred from a shore base to an offshore platform is confirmed received by the incoming crew on arrival, not assumed received because a paper manifest was sent with the supply vessel. The two-way confirmation closes the accountability gap that generates the majority of unlocat

Full chain of custody, from dock to deck and back.

An asset transferred from a shore base to an offshore platform is confirmed received by the incoming crew on arrival, not assumed received because a paper manifest was sent with the supply vessel. The two-way confirmation closes the accountability gap that generates the majority of unlocatable asset reports in cross-environment operations.

VMS tracks every movement of temporary equipment through:

  • Digital check-out from vendor / warehouse
  • Supply vessel manifesting and tracking
  • Rig receipt confirmation and condition assessment
  • Deployment logging (where, when, and by whom)
  • Demobilisation condition reporting and return verification

Result: Complete chain of custody eliminates disputes, reduces losses, and ensures that every item is accounted for at every stage.

Trend Analysis & Predictive Intelligence

Certification Expiry & Re-Inspection Alerts

Trend Analysis & Predictive Intelligence

 Move from reactive to proactive temporary equipment management.

Over time, VMS builds a powerful dataset that reveals:

  • Which equipment categories generate the most NPT
  • Which well types or operations are most vulnerable to temporary equipment failures
  • Seasonal or regional patterns in equipment availability or failure rates
  • Correlation between 

 Move from reactive to proactive temporary equipment management.

Over time, VMS builds a powerful dataset that reveals:

  • Which equipment categories generate the most NPT
  • Which well types or operations are most vulnerable to temporary equipment failures
  • Seasonal or regional patterns in equipment availability or failure rates
  • Correlation between vendor, equipment age, and failure probability

Result: Predictive insights allow you to pre-position critical spares, adjust mobilisation timelines, and specify enhanced requirements for high-risk equipment categories — reducing NPT before it occurs.

Don't let a missing certificate or an unchecked rental tool cost you millions a day. Let VMS take control.

Contact us and discover what we can do for you.

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