Digital processes are permeating all areas of industry. The resulting benefits are evident across all sectors and companies. These potentials are also increasingly being recognized in non-destructive materials testing. Benjamin Kleemann, a technical employee at DEKRA Incos GmbH, considers this process digitalization to be a fundamental prerequisite for a company’s future competitiveness in NDT. In his view, the digital process and how it is designed will also be indispensable as an evaluation criterion on the customer side.
“We want to monitor and manage our orders and all inspections. It is important to us to always have a precise overview of all upcoming inspections and their current status so that we can respond if necessary,” explains Kleemann. By using the DRIVE NDT workflow and management platform, DEKRA Incos GmbH expects clear advantages compared to its previous way of working and to competitors in the NDT industry. “With centralized management of all inspections and the associated activities, we are always able to provide information to our customers and can respond significantly faster when needed. This creates clear added value for us and our customers and improves our service.”
In addition to centralized workflow management, individual processes are already being controlled in DRIVE NDT. In addition to employee management including certification management, existing devices and inspection equipment are also managed with DRIVE NDT. Additional DRIVE NDT modules are currently being evaluated and are intended to further improve DEKRA Incos GmbH’s work in the future. “By consolidating the processes, we expect a continuous increase in efficiency in the future. The possibilities that DRIVE NDT offers for this are extensive.
We will integrate the modules into our workflow step by step so that, ultimately, we can map almost all processes in DRIVE NDT.” In addition to the step-by-step introduction of the modules, the inspection methods managed in DRIVE NDT are also being expanded gradually. “We currently use DRIVE NDT for management and report creation for RT, PT, UT, PMI, VT, and HT reports.
In the next step, we also want to switch the management of UT inspections to DRIVE NDT. In this way, we will gradually expand the scope and will be able to incorporate the experience gained into further report templates and workflows. This will enable us to accelerate and improve acceptance among our inspectors.”
Kleemann describes the experience with DRIVE NDT to date as consistently positive. The most significant improvement so far has been in report creation. According to his own statement, since the introduction of DRIVE NDT there have been virtually no errors in report creation. DEKRA expert Kleemann puts the reduction in errors at 90–99%. If changes do occur afterwards, the auditability of the reports is supported by automatic versioning in DRIVE NDT. In addition, it is foreseeable that paper usage will drop to nearly zero in the future.
Concerns regarding accessibility have also proven to be unfounded. To date, there have been no significant difficulties with accessibility or software availability, so smooth operations have always been ensured.
For the future use of DRIVE NDT, DEKRA Incos sees a wide range of potential improvements. Above all, the potential for savings and efficiency gains through DRIVE NDT is rated as very high. Of course, this potential can only be realized with an even more comprehensive implementation, but it is already clearly evident to everyone involved. In particular, the option of centralized evaluation for radiographic testing through the direct connection of D-Tect X is regarded as a major advantage. Kleemann likewise expects enormous efficiency and speed advantages from integrating the new Notification Center.
However, DEKRA Incos sees the greatest advantage of DRIVE NDT in the flexibility and the simple, intuitive use of the software. Kleemann is convinced of its user-friendliness, especially for users who are not software-savvy, which will significantly reduce the time required for training and instruction. Furthermore, through close collaboration with AAP NDT and DÜRR NDT GmbH & Co. KG, the platform can be optimally tailored to the company’s needs.
In this area, DRIVE NDT provides an almost unrivaled solution and thus already offers DEKRA Incos the competitive advantages of tomorrow—today.
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