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Operational risk management (ORM) continues to evolve, but the need to identify, assess, and mitigate risk in real time remains constant, especially in high-hazard industries like oil and gas, chemicals, and power. At Prometheus Group, our mission is to help organizations protect their people, assets, and environments by delivering the tools they need to act with confidence and control.
One of the key pillars of that mission is our barrier risk management software, which originated with RiskPoynt. In 2019, RiskPoynt was independently recognized for its strengths in barrier management, mechanical integrity, and risk visualization in a detailed analyst report from Verdantix.
This report revealed that RiskPoynt was already helping leading operators improve efficiency, standardize risk visibility, and support proactive decision-making across global sites. Let’s take a closer look at what those reports revealed—and why RiskPoynt’s capabilities are still making an impact today.
The operational risk landscape in 2019
In 2019, Verdantix conducted a comprehensive analysis of the operational risk management software landscape. The Green Quadrant Operational Risk Management Software report evaluated 17 leading vendors based on in-depth product demonstrations, a 211-point capabilities questionnaire, and interviews with operations leaders from high-risk industries including oil and gas, petrochemicals, and construction.
The goal of the report was clear: identify which solutions provided the most value in helping organizations monitor risk, improve safety, and drive performance in complex, asset-intensive environments.
Among the vendors evaluated, RiskPoynt stood out. The platform delivered advanced capabilities in both barrier risk management and mechanical integrity, two areas critical to building a proactive and reliable risk management strategy.
The barrier risk advantage
When Verdantix evaluated barrier risk management capabilities across the ORM software market in 2019, RiskPoynt earned the highest possible marks—scoring 2.6 out of 3.0, the top rating among all 17 vendors analyzed. That wasn’t by accident.
Barrier risk management is the backbone of proactive safety strategy in high-hazard industries. It's about visualizing how multiple safeguards—barriers—work together to prevent incidents. What RiskPoynt delivered was more than just static dashboards or compliance checks. It offered a dynamic, real-time view of barrier health and operational risk.
At the heart of the software was the Cumulative Risk Visualization (CRV) dashboard, a color-coded, intuitive interface used by operations, maintenance, and engineering teams alike. This unified view allowed users across disciplines to immediately see current and residual risks at any given time. No guesswork. No waiting for reports. Just live, actionable data.
But RiskPoynt didn’t stop at visualization. The system integrated industry-proven tools like:
- Layers of Protection Analysis (LOPA) for quantifying risk
- Probability of Failure on Demand (PFD) metrics
- Custom risk matrices tailored to specific site or organizational thresholds
When risk levels began to climb, the software triggered mitigation workflows: flagging required control measures, assigning responsibility, and delivering notifications based on predefined rules. Whether an event was a prerequisite for action or a post-approval follow-up, the system made sure the right people were looped in at the right time.
This was not the industry norm in 2019. And in many ways, it still isn’t today. RiskPoynt’s approach laid the groundwork for what customers now expect from operational risk tools—context-rich data, clear visual cues, and built-in accountability.
Mechanical integrity that informs better decisions
Beyond barrier risk, RiskPoynt also distinguished itself in another critical area of operational safety: mechanical integrity. In the 2019 Verdantix report, it scored 1.9 out of 3.0, nearly double the category average (1.1), positioning it as one of the most capable tools for evaluating equipment-level reliability and risk.
So what made its approach different?
RiskPoynt’s mechanical integrity module wasn’t a bolt-on—it was deeply integrated with the systems customers were already using to run their operations. That included:
- Distributed Control Systems (DCS)
- SCADA systems
- Data historians
- ERP platforms
- Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS)
By aggregating and interpreting this data, RiskPoynt could provide a 12-month rolling reliability score for each asset, benchmarked against performance standards. It wasn’t just tracking what had failed, it was predicting what might.
One of the standout features was its ability to visualize Safety Critical Element (SCE) maintenance gaps. If a critical inspection or maintenance task hadn’t been performed, users could see exactly where and why—from site-level overviews down to individual asset tags. This level of transparency helped teams avoid costly oversights and focus their resources where risk was most concentrated.
More than just a maintenance tracker, this capability turned routine asset health checks into strategic risk insights. For asset-intensive industries, that meant fewer blind spots, smarter scheduling, and a stronger alignment between maintenance and safety outcomes.
At the time, very few ORM software platforms offered this level of integration and intelligence. RiskPoynt helped customers move from fragmented data to a single, operationally useful view of mechanical risk—a philosophy that Prometheus Group continues to champion across its platform today.
Real-world results: from theory to transformation
Strong features and high analyst scores are one thing—but what really matters is what happens in the field. By 2019, RiskPoynt’s impact wasn’t theoretical. It was tangible, measurable, and global.
According to the Verdantix report, RiskPoynt had been deployed across more than 100 sites worldwide, with a customer base spanning Europe, Southeast Asia, and beyond. These weren’t small-scale pilots or single-use installations. RiskPoynt’s software was embedded in daily operations at complex, high-risk facilities—offshore platforms, refineries, and processing plants—where safety and uptime go hand-in-hand.
Among the most striking outcomes was the transformation seen by a North Sea platform operator, who leveraged RiskPoynt’s barrier model to streamline risk identification and decision-making. Over the course of just 14 months, the operator increased operational efficiency from 52% to 81%. That’s a dramatic improvement, especially in an environment where even minor upticks in performance can translate to millions in savings or increased production value.
This kind of improvement wasn’t just about efficiency. It was about confidence—confidence that the right data was reaching the right people at the right time. That frontline workers, engineers, and leadership were aligned on what mattered most. And that the systems in place weren’t just tracking tasks but actively reducing the potential for failure.
Companies like Shell, OMV, Tullow Oil, and Bumi Armada were already investing in RiskPoynt’s solutions at the time, long before it became part of Prometheus Group. That adoption speaks volumes about the trust placed in the platform by some of the most safety-conscious operators in the world.
What these results show is that the software wasn’t just designed well, it performed well in the real world. And those same results-focused principles continue to shape Prometheus Group’s approach to operational risk today.
From analyst advice to product innovation
No software is perfect—and in 2019, Verdantix was clear-eyed about the opportunities for RiskPoynt to evolve. Their analysts identified several areas where the platform could further enhance its impact: deeper automation, expanded user interfaces, and stronger business intelligence capabilities.
Specifically, the report called out two key improvement areas:
- Sensor-level integration:
While RiskPoynt could already ingest data from systems like historians and DCS, Verdantix noted that customers were increasingly looking for direct integration with digital sensors on equipment and in the environment. Real-time sensor data would allow organizations to monitor performance and safety conditions with even more granularity—and catch potential failures before they escalate. - Advanced visualization and analytics:
The 2019 report encouraged RiskPoynt to explore 3D visualization tools for displaying process hazards, asset health, and spatial risk conditions. It also recommended embedding or integrating third-party BI platforms—like Power BI, Tableau, Jaspersoft, or Yellowfin—to enhance reporting, dashboards, and insight delivery.
To RiskPoynt’s credit, many of these enhancements were already on the product roadmap at the time. But what’s more important is what happened after 2019—when these early improvement areas became launchpads for meaningful innovation under the Prometheus Group umbrella.
Today, Prometheus Group offers a connected suite of risk and asset management tools that continue to build on RiskPoynt’s foundational strengths. Real-time operational dashboards. Visual workflows. Role-based alerts. Embedded analytics. These features don’t just respond to the industry’s needs, they reflect them.
What Verdantix framed as aspirational in 2019 is now, in many ways, standard practice in Prometheus Group’s approach to operational risk management.
RiskPoynt’s role in Prometheus Group’s Operational Risk Management evolution
The 2019 Verdantix report offered a snapshot of RiskPoynt at a pivotal moment—when it had already established itself as a category leader in barrier risk management, while still evolving to meet a rapidly changing industrial landscape.
Five years later, those same strengths are still evident in the software—but they’ve also grown. As part of Prometheus Group, RiskPoynt’s original vision has scaled into something broader, more integrated, and even more actionable.
Today’s Prometheus platform doesn’t just help customers identify and visualize risk. It enables them to act—intelligently, collaboratively, and in real time. From operations and maintenance to asset strategy and process safety, we continue to build on the core principles that set RiskPoynt apart in the first place:
- Unified, intuitive risk visualization
- Deep integration with operational and maintenance systems
- A focus on real-world application and measurable outcomes
We know that in high-risk industries, trust is earned. That’s why we continue to innovate with a clear purpose: to help our customers reduce risk, improve efficiency, and protect what matters most.
As we look to the future of operational risk management—one shaped by AI, predictive insights, and digital twins—it’s worth remembering where it all began. Because the best software doesn’t just evolve with the times. It defines them.
