Waygate Technologies and RINA to offer marine industry new digital inspection solutions
05/10/2022
Waygate Technologies, a Baker Hughes business and market leader in non-destructive testing (NDT) solutions for industrial inspection, has signed a global technology cooperation agreement with RINA, a multinational inspection, certification and engineering group, to deliver new and innovative solutions for the marine shipyard sector. The first customised projects will start towards the end of this year. 
During the ship manufacturing process, many parts are welded together and then inspected for acceptance, usually by means of visual inspection and NDT. As a combined force, Waygate Technologies and RINA, through its consulting engineering arm, RINA Consulting, will provide customers with new solutions to digitise their welding inspections and provide actionable data analytics. This will enable shipyard inspectors to detect welding defects immediately after welding is completed, reducing future delays caused by repair or reprocessing and thus decreasing costs significantly.
Shipyards can also use the solutions to generate statistics and insights from the inspection data collected, enabling them to identify critical points in the welding process and implement preventative corrective actions to optimise their workflows, reduce the number of welding defects and increase the quality of welded joints to the benefit of safety.
Waygate Technologies’ leading NDT expertise and the digital capabilities of the company’s integrated software ecosystem InspectionWorks enables precise artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) assisted recognition of welding defects based on images captured in the field. Together, RINA and Waygate will help customers digitise all inspections and provide insightful analytics by leveraging continuously improving assisted defect recognition (ADR) algorithms.
“The cooperation between our two market-leading companies combines digital expertise and data intelligence in non-destructive inspection with our comprehensive market expertise in the marine industry to create exceptional benefits and added value for customers. Our joint solution helps detect potential defects during and after welding, optimising production processes, reducing the risk of rework and scrap and eventually improving the quality of welded joints,” said Alberto Cavaggioni, CEO at RINA Consulting.
Nicola Jannis, CEO at Waygate Technologies, added: “Jointly, we will create pioneering inspection solutions and consulting services for marine shipyards and related businesses. Our digital NDT solution helps leverage data to constantly improve production process quality as well as efficiency and drive innovation.”
For Waygate Technologies, the agreement marks another milestone in the company’s strategy to invest for growth and expand its leading position in selected markets by combining NDT solutions with digitalisation and collaboration with industry partners. This partnership with RINA aligns with Waygate Technologies’ mission to evolve from a provider of NDT hardware and renowned service capability to a solutions partner for data insight, catalysing customers’ digital transformation and providing them with a competitive edge.
www.bakerhughes.com/waygate-technologies
