DEKRA increases efficiency with digital NDT workflow management
26/07/2023
DEKRA has approximately 48,000 employees and ranks as one of the foremost testing companies worldwide. A pioneering team is introducing the innovative Drive NDT software to organise non-destructive testing (NDT) and its peripheral processes at the Bayernoil site in Neustadt, Germany.
Digital processes are firmly embedded in all industrial fields these days. The resulting advantages are clearly seen by all companies and industries and their potential is also increasingly recognised for NDT.
Benjamin Kleemann of the technical staff at DEKRA Incos GmbH sees digitisation as a basic prerequisite for the future competitiveness of a company involved in NDT. In his opinion, digital processes and their design will become indispensable for customers as an evaluation standard.
“We want to be able to monitor and manage our orders and all of our inspections. It is important for us to always have a precise overview of all pending inspections and their current status, enabling us to take action when needed,” explained Benjamin. DEKRA Incos expects clear advantages from the use of the Drive NDT workflow and management platform, compared to the previous way of working and to the competition in the NDT sector. “With centralised management of all inspections and their accompanying processes, we are constantly able to keep our customers informed and can react much faster when necessary. This gives us and our customers a noticeable added value and improves our overall service.”
In addition to the centralised management of workflow, the individual processes are guided by Drive NDT. As well as the management of inspection staff, including their certifications, the devices and testing equipment are also managed within Drive NDT. Additional Drive NDT modules are currently being tested and these are set to further improve the work of DEKRA Incos. “By bundling the processes, we expect progressive increases in efficiency in the future. The possibilities that Drive NDT offers for this are extensive. We will incorporate more modules into our workflow step-by-step. In fact, we will ultimately be able to map almost all of our processes in Drive NDT,” Benjamin explained.
Alongside the gradual introduction of modules, DEKRA Incos is also steadily expanding the test methods that are currently managed by Drive NDT. “Presently, we use Drive NDT for the management and generation of reports for radiographic testing (RT), penetrant testing (PT), ultrasonic testing (UT), positive material identification (PMI), visual testing (VT) and hardness testing (HT). Next, we want to migrate the management of UT itself to Drive NDT. We will gradually increase the scope and be able to incorporate the experience we gain as we do this into other report templates and workflows. It will also enable us to improve and accelerate the acceptance of our inspectors.”
Benjamin describes his experience so far with Drive NDT as consistently positive and the most significant improvement to date is seen in the generation of test reports. He states that since the introduction of Drive NDT, the reports have been generated practically without error. Benjamin estimates the decrease in errors to be around 90-99%. If subsequent changes do occur, the revision reliability of the reports is supported in Drive NDT by automatic revisioning.
It is also foreseeable that the amount of paper used will decrease to almost zero in the future. Any concerns regarding accessibility have proven to be unfounded. To date, there have been no significant difficulties in the accessibility or availability of the software and a smooth workflow has consistently resulted.
DEKRA Incos sees a wide range of potential improvements from the future use of Drive NDT. Most importantly, Benjamin estimates very high savings potential and increases in efficiency from using the software. Of course, much of this potential can only be achieved by a more comprehensive implementation, but it is already plain to see for all involved. In particular, the possibility of central evaluation for radiographic inspections with a direct connection to D-Tect X is seen as an enormous advantage. Benjamin also expects enormous efficiency and speed benefits from the integration of the new notification centre.
DEKRA Incos also sees a major advantage in the flexibility of Drive NDT and the simple and intuitive nature of the software. Benjamin is impressed by its user-friendliness, especially for users who do not have an affinity with software, and this will significantly reduce the time required in training and instruction. Moreover, with Advanced Automation Protocols in NDT (AAP-NDT) and Dürr NDT GmbH and Co KG working closely together, it means that the platform can be optimally adapted to the Drive of the company.
Drive NDT provides an almost unrivalled solution in its field, thus offering DEKRA Incos the competitive advantages of tomorrow, today.
