The Alternate Work Practice (AWP) lets a downstream facility survey its equipment with an Optical Gas Imaging (OGI) camera instead of monitoring every component individually with a Method 21 (M21) analyzer. It is the Method 21 Alternative Work Practice: a facility that would otherwise run a traditional, fully M21 monitoring program can instead walk its areas with an OGI camera along a defined route.
Instead of navigating to and recording a result on every component, the technician walks a defined route through the area while scanning with the OGI camera and records Milestone Inspections at intervals along the way. Chateau then automatically creates Path Inspections for all of the components between each pair of milestones, on the basis that they were surveyed as the technician walked past them.
AWP vs. a traditional Method 21 program
AWP is used by downstream facilities as an alternative to their traditional, component-by-component Method 21 program:
| Traditional Method 21 program | AWP | |
| Approach | Monitor every component individually with an M21 analyzer | Walk a route with an OGI camera; record milestones at intervals |
| What the technician records | A PPM reading on every component | A result only on milestone components |
| Components in between | Each monitored directly | Path Inspections created automatically |
AWP is enabled per facility. For large facilities, surveying areas with an OGI camera can be more cost-effective than monitoring every component individually with an M21 analyzer.
Key terms
| Term | Definition |
| AWP (OGI) Inspection | An OGI inspection assigned by Chateau Rules that must be performed in compliance with the Alternate Work Practice. Appears in Rules as OGI Annual / Semiannual / Quarterly / Bimonthly / Monthly. |
| Milestone Inspection | An OGI inspection the technician records manually on a specific component to mark a point in the survey — typically the start and end of a session, or at a set time interval. Milestones define the boundaries used to create Path Inspections. |
| Path Inspection | An OGI inspection Chateau creates automatically for a component that lies between two milestones, on either the Route Sequence or Tag Number order. It is not physically performed — it is inferred from the technician's survey path. |
| Session | The period between two consecutive milestone inspections (one starting, one ending). |
| Milestone Interval | The number of minutes after which the technician is reminded to record another milestone. Set per technician. New technicians default to 800 minutes, which effectively turns the timed reminder off — leave it there if milestones are placed by physical area/section, or lower it to remind the technician on a time (video-length) cadence. See Setting Up AWP. |
| Starting / Ending Milestone | The first milestone opens a session; the next milestone closes it and triggers Path Inspection creation for the components in between. |
How the pieces fit together
- An administrator turns on AWP mode and configures the survey settings — see Setting Up AWP.
- In the field, the technician records milestones as they survey, and Chateau fills in the path inspections between them — see Recording an AWP Survey.
- Leaks found mid-survey are recorded as standard OGI failures, not milestones — see Handling Leaks During an AWP Survey.
- Milestone and path inspections can be corrected back in the office — see Editing and Deleting AWP Inspections.
- Survey media, reporting, and compliance checks pull it all together — see AWP Media, Reporting, and Compliance.
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