Investment boost for Ashtead’s NDT rental fleet
14/06/2019
As demand grows for the latest non-destructive testing (NDT) equipment, Ashtead Technology has ramped up investment in new items for its rental fleet. “In the first four months of 2019, we spent several hundred thousand pounds on cutting-edge NDT technology,” said Steve Drake, NDT Market Manager at Ashtead Technology. “With no sign of a dip in demand, particularly for phased array equipment, we expect this level of investment to continue for the foreseeable future.”Some of Ashtead Technology’s key investments this year include the advanced Olympus OmniScan® MX2 32:128 phased array flaw detector and the FlexoFORM™ pipe elbow scanner.
The M2M Gekko phased array flaw detector was added to the rental fleet at the beginning of the year and this has been supplemented with instruments such as the Phoenix Wren time-of-flight diffraction (TOFD) scanner, the Sonatest D50 ultrasonic flaw detector and the Olympus NORTEC® 600C eddy current flaw detector, as well as a wide variety of probes and other accessories. The number of thickness gauges and videoprobes has also been boosted to accommodate demand.NDT technology is developing rapidly, which creates a growing demand for the latest equipment as inspection engineers seek to find new ways to further improve the quality of their work. This, in turn, drives Ashtead’s investment strategy, which is designed to ensure that customers have access to the latest technology without the burden of heavy capital cost.
The increase in rental demand demonstrates how the market is increasingly seeing rental as a significant benefit to business. The ability to rent equipment as required allows access to the latest technology and enables customers to choose the best equipment for every application.
