The business value of digitalising industrial inspection processes
19/06/2020
Industrial inspections, including asset integrity management, non-destructive testing (NDT), risk-based inspections and fitness-for-service evaluations, are inherently people-centric processes. Technicians and engineers are specially trained and skilled to conduct highly specialised and sometimes dangerous inspections that cannot be completed by machines alone. It is a service-driven business. As with all service-orientated businesses, operational efficiency, from customer relations and project management to billing and retention, is critical to success.Achieving optimised operational efficiency enables the business to improve important metrics, such as meeting customer timelines, showing impeccable safety performance, adhering to customer-defined inspection report formats and providing competitively priced service offerings. These results allow an inspection service provider to grow its business while maintaining performance and profitability.
The results of digital transformation for an inspections service provider are measurable in revenues, improved customer satisfaction, enhanced safety, greater employee engagement, faster and more thorough job completion, more accurate reporting, higher job margins and faster billing cycle times. Bruce Breeden of Floodlight Software explains…
An industrial asset owner or operator has three top priorities:
- Ensuring that the industrial assets are operating safely and correctly;
- Getting the most value out of these assets as much as possible; and
- Maintaining assets in such a way that their future value is optimised.
- Perform services at a lower cost than its competitors;
- Perform services more quickly than its competitors;
- Make inspection reports more useful to the customer than those of its competitors;
- Make inspection reports easier for customers to access, use and act upon; and
- Provide customers with insights that go above and beyond the standard and required results.
Benefits for inspection businesses
Manual processes and systems can impede a company’s ability to serve more customers and grow the business. Starting at the technician level, where the inspection service is delivered, paper forms and manual processes may prevent the technician from fully understanding and serving the customer. Lacking visibility into the customer’s assets, service requirements and inspection history, the technician cannot make recommendations or provide the depth of insight and knowledge needed on site.
The administrative efforts that go into keeping manual processes on track to deliver proper service levels require time that could otherwise be spent serving new customers and delivering new services. The hidden overheads in paper forms, storage and administrative time constitute an additional cost to not serving customers as they have come to expect.
To begin the process of digital transformation, start in the field to understand the role and daily tasks of the inspector. This is where the adoption of digital processes begins. In terms of resource utilisation, digitalising inspection processes enables the industrial inspection service provider to deliver and bill more work with the same number of staff. At the core of this capability is managing technician utilisation in real time. Adopting digital inspection processes creates new efficiencies in how jobs are initiated, quoted, assigned, managed and invoiced. These efficiencies reduce costs and make it easier for customers to carry out business with their service organisation.
Beyond streamlining work processes, holistic inspections management software that continuously stores and analyses data enables the service organisation to see into business operations, including information such as: how long it takes to complete an inspection; which technicians are best suited and available to complete a job; what kind of equipment is needed and when it will be available; how profitable an inspection is; and where there are opportunities to further streamline and optimise processes.
In financial terms, digitalising inspection processes speeds up the billing cycle and reduces days sales outstanding (DSO). This advantage becomes even more pronounced when inspectors are provided with a mobile app that guides the work on site, allowing them to easily and efficiently capture the data needed for the inspection report, in addition to the work performed, when the work was completed and the results of the inspection. This data, captured in real time without requiring manual exports, reformatting or other manipulation, ensures accurate and complete billing as soon as the work is complete.
Finally, there may be no more important aspect to digitalising industrial inspections than safety. Keeping inspectors safe requires outfitting them with the proper tools, data and equipment. Central to these are the job safety assessments (JSAs) that are required throughout an inspector’s daily process to ensure a safe environment, both for the inspector and for other workers and bystanders. Industrial inspection providers that enforce JSAs as a part of carrying out business reduce risk and improve safety records. With inspectors moving from one job to the next, incorporating JSAs into their daily routine and requiring them during each inspection process is a non-negotiable feature. A complete digital process can help to enforce these safety protocols, ensuring the wellbeing of inspectors, other workers and bystanders. As a result, the risk to the business and to the customer is significantly reduced.
Technology strategies
There is a wide range of technology and software available to industrial inspection service providers. Many of these solutions address a specific need, such as providing the results of an inspection or automating a single process, for example managing an inspector’s schedule. Digital transformation covers a wide range of business and operational needs, automating multiple complementary processes across the customer life cycle. Moving to a fully digital inspection process requires an adaptable technology that can be configured to match the exact end-to-end process, accessed by multiple roles within an organisation and always available.
Digital transformation fully realised
When fully realised, digital transformation for industrial inspection service providers encompasses a critical cross-section of the business. A wide range of options must be considered that often requires knowledge beyond the scope of the core competencies of industrial inspection businesses. There are technical issues such as data management, workflows, permissions and security, integrations and reporting and analytics. There are operational considerations such as inspection reporting, quoting, billing and customer communications, as well as personnel considerations such as JSA completion, inspector skills and certification management and training. In short, digital transformation goes to the core of industrial and NDT inspection operations.
www.floodlightsoft.com
