Report confirms NDT as an engineering service essential to the UK economy
03/06/2014
NDT is crucial for the development of new manufacturing methods and engineering materials, for assuring the integrity of much of the UK infrastructure and for asset life management. As such, NDT is essential to deliver many of the key competences defined by the Technology Strategy Board in its high-value manufacturing strategy. The UK has traditionally been strong in NDT technology and major global players rely upon UK R&D organisations. UK training and certification in NDT are seen as the international gold standard. A report*, compiled by a cross-sector industry-academic working group, identifies the key opportunities and challenges for the UK NDT community and recommends the high-level actions needed to maintain and extend the UK’s position in support of both the public good and economic growth.
Every day, more than 25,000 inspections are carried out in factories and on-site in the UK to detect defects and damage in a huge range of products, plant and structures; it is estimated that there are more than 120,000 inspectors operating worldwide. The community has formal mechanisms for skills development, ranging from practitioner to doctorate level.The global NDT industry had an estimated turnover in 2012 of about $5.6bn. This levers a much greater benefit to end-users through intelligent risk management.
Regulatory bodies demand that NDT is used to demonstrate compliance with safety and other legislation, and for unregulated industries the commercial advantages of reduced warranty claims, improved plant reliability and higher customer satisfaction justify its use.
NDT delivers high impact in terms of safety, asset value maximisation and competitive benefits for client industries such as aerospace, power generation and transport. Making the most of available benefits in the future requires planning now to allow effective navigation through the landscape of change that lies ahead. NDT is crucial for the development of new manufacturing methods and engineering materials, for assuring the integrity of much of the UK infrastructure and for asset life management.
As such, NDT will have important roles to play in at least five of the eight UK Government ‘Great Technologies’ and impacts on all of the national key competences defined by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) in its high-value manufacturing strategy. The UK is world-leading in NDT development and its strong R&D pool is proving a good source of new technologies for industry. UK training and qualification schemes in all industry sectors are recognised as the ‘world’s best’. Industry is actively supporting NDT innovation at all stages, involving collaboration with Research Councils and the TSB Catapult centres.
The report concludes by recommending the following high-level actions:
- Strengthen business engagement and education
- Attract and up-skill new entrants to solve the demographic gap and deliver advanced NDT solutions
- Maintain and extend the existing joined-up R&D portfolio (Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 1 to 3)
- Enable a step change in the speed of technology transfer into wider business sectors (TRL 3 to 6).
Copies of the report may be downloaded from the BINDT website at: www.bindt.org/downloads/Materials-KTN-Future-of-NDT-in-UK-economy.pdf
Hard copies are available from BINDT on request while stocks last.
www.materialsktn.net
