Why Time Tracking is a Critical Lever for Asset Integrity Management Success

Introduction

Asset Integrity Management (AIM) is an increasingly high-stakes function across energy, utilities, and infrastructure. With aging pipelines, rising labor costs, and tightening compliance mandates, the organizations that lead in AIM today are those that excel not just in inspection technology or analytics — but in operational discipline.

Among the most overlooked of those disciplines? Workforce time tracking.

Time tracking may seem extremely tactical. But for organizations in AIM that do it right, time tracking plays a very strategic role in everything from regulatory readiness to billing velocity. Done well, time tracking increases visibility, minimizes cost overruns, and tightens alignment between work completed and value delivered.

Challenges in Managing Asset Integrity

Even high-maturity AIM programs face four persistent operational risks — most of which are labor-related:

1. Complex, decentralized workforces – AIM work is rarely centralized. It spans remote crews, subcontractors, field techs, and engineers. Coordinating workforce activities, schedules, and costs — especially across multiple sites — is inherently challenging.
2. Heavy documentation and regulatory burdens – With multiple overlapping regulations (e.g. PHMSA, OSHA, FERC), inspection and maintenance activities must be well-documented. Time records must match task logs. Any discrepancy can stall audits or reimbursement.
3. High cost of failures or downtime – Labor is a leading cost driver in AIM — but poor tracking obscures which tasks consume the most time. When visibility is low, small inefficiencies can easily snowball into budget overruns and missed SLAs.
4. Long project cycles with poor visibility – AIM programs may run for years, yet workforce data is often limited to retroactive reports. Without timely, task-level insights, it’s hard to course-correct in time to avoid operational or financial misses.

Why Better Time Tracking Matters in AIM

Labor is often the single largest cost in asset integrity work. Yet organizations struggle to answer basic questions:

• Who worked on what?
• For how long?
• Against which asset or inspection task?

In the absence of reliable labor data:

• Preventive maintenance tasks are delayed, compounding asset and environmental risk
• Budgets get blown without clear root cause
• Regulatory reporting becomes reactive (not to mention more stressful)
• Invoicing slows — especially in contract-heavy work where labor must be justified

Better time tracking doesn’t just clarify labor costs. It connects people to outcomes, enabling stronger compliance, better financial control, and faster execution.

How Specialized Time Tracking Supports AIM Goals

Modern, project-based time tracking systems designed for industries like AIM provide:

• Real-time visibility into field operations – Give managers up-to-date insight without burdening crews with admin overhead.
• Detailed labor allocation by asset, project, or location – Enable accurate cost tracking and more defensible billing or budgeting.
• Compliance support with full audit trails – Ensure you have reliable records when regulators — or clients — come knocking.
• Proactive scheduling and resource visibility – Know which techs are available, qualified, and assigned to the right task at the right time.
• Streamlined billing and cost recovery – Reduce days sales outstanding (DSO) by capturing billable time cleanly, accurately, and quickly. Integrate with your ERP and/or payroll systems to improve workflows, reporting, and billing velocity.

In industries where delays, overruns, or missing documentation can erode margin, trust, and even safety, optimized time tracking becomes a competitive advantage.

Closing Thoughts

Strong asset integrity management depends not only on the tools you deploy or the inspections and maintenance you complete — it depends on your control of labor costs and compliance data.

For AIM teams, investing in better time tracking means:

• Clearer cost visibility
• Faster billing
• Smoother audits
• Smarter staffing decisions

Time is your most valuable asset. Track it like one.

Next Steps

Explore how Journyx’s time tracking solutions, built for project- and cost-driven environments, help AIM leaders improve outcomes — by optimizing resource use (especially field operations), accelerating billing cycles, and strengthening compliance.

Download the datasheet “Time Intelligence for the Energy Industry” or read the case study “Using Journyx Project Management Tool to Achieve 30% More Revenue by Optimizing Staff Utilization” to learn more.

Or, ready to jump in and see what Journyx can do for your organization?

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