~~ Microbiologically Influenced Corrosion (MIC) can occur very unexpectedly in systems leading to pipeline integrity problems and economic loss. Still in many industrial systems it remains difficult to retain full control of microbial growth in the system. In practice asset managers are still surprised by MIC related brakedowns.To understand manage and control MIC issues we need a clearer understanding of the microbes involved and the way they interact. There are different methods for controlling MIC but the effectiveness of these methods depends on the type of microorganisms present and the prevailing conditions. Therefore it is important to know which MIC microorganisms and conditions are present in a system in order to perform a risk analysis. A risk analysis is a multidisciplinary approach for determining the critical control points of MIC and with this to manage the problems and to set up mitigation strategies.Through the development of new identification tools it becomes possible to gain extensive insight in the present microorganisms and activities based on the total genetic (DNA/RNA) information of a sample. With this approach it is not only possible to identify microbial species but more importantly and revelatory: the microbial functions (e.g. sulphate reduction or acid producing). Thereby it becomes possible to investigate MIC issues beyond the current state of knowledge.During the presentation a practical case will be presented. The case illustrates the practical use of novel and advanced molecular tools for enhancement of the daily management of assets. In this case we combined molecular microbial identification methods with bioinformatics to identify MIC organisms and functional traits in a pipeline system. Besides this microbiological results are related to actual chemical parameters. With this approach we aim to identify critical control points for future management of complex microbial processes. Information is given on the used tools to obtain these results. Also a demonstration of the bioinformatics software is given.