The following is an interview with Dr Nick Brierley, Head of Research and Development (R&D) at Diondo GmbH (a manufacturer of X-ray computed tomography (CT) systems with a focus on customisation, based in Germany) and the inaugural Chair of BINDT’s NDE 4.0 Group.
Please give a brief history of the NDE 4.0 Group, when it was founded, etc.
The NDE 4.0 Group is a BINDT Special Interest Group founded around summer 2019. Credit is due to Robert Smith (formerly of the University of Bristol and now retired) who was instrumental in setting up the Group.
For reference, Industry 4.0 or ‘the Fourth Industrial Revolution’ is characterised by extensively networked hardware and cyberphysical systems. It is associated with the deployment of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, additive manufacturing and augmented reality.
The scope of ‘NDE 4.0’ includes the enhancement of non-destructive evaluation (NDE) to serve Industry 4.0, for example exposing full details of NDE inspection to production planning as well as the enhancement of NDE by adopting Industry 4.0 technologies, such as adaptive inspection planning using a digital twin of the inspection.
What are the purposes of the Group?
The purposes of the Group include:
Promoting and enabling the introduction of new NDE 4.0 technologies by identifying and tackling barriers and through the education of manufacturing and maintenance supply chains in particular.
Supporting the contribution of NDE to wider Industry 4.0 practices and frameworks, including through-life approaches, thereby enabling a greater organisational value from NDE to be unlocked.
Two further purposes relate to roadmapping and training, respectively. These are covered in the questions below.
What is your personal role within the Group?
I was the inaugural Chair back in 2019 and have remained as the Chair despite changing jobs and moving to Germany. I now also sit on the counterpart committee of the German Society for Non-Destructive Testing (DGZfP). Therefore, I can readily facilitate a degree of international exchange, noting that the DGZfP Working Groups have been particularly active in the ‘4.0 space’.
What are the key achievements of the Group?
One of the purposes of the Group is to conduct a roadmapping exercise, revisited periodically, to help determine the detailed priorities of the Group. A paper covering the initial roadmap was published in Insight, Vol 63, No 9, September 2021. The paper is titled: ‘Roadmap for NDE 4.0 reveals breadth of challenges to be tackled’. The roadmapping work is ongoing and an update is due to be published soon.
Is the Group working on any particular projects? Please describe these.
The fourth purpose (see questions 2 and 4 for the others) of the Group is to support the transition to NDE 4.0 practices by contributing to the definition and planning of future qualifications and future BINDT offerings in general.
This is ‘work in progress’ for the Group, which is investigating ways to ‘future-proof’ training and discussing adding a ‘4.0’ element to existing non-destructive evaluation qualifications and/or creating standalone ‘NDE 4.0’ courses. As well as formal qualifications, the Group seeks to encourage NDE practitioners to think more about digitalisation, databases, interoperability, etc.
In addition to educating NDE practitioners, attention is also being given to the ‘flip side’, ie training computer scientists, artificial intelligence specialists and so on, who find themselves working in our domain, on the basics of NDE so that they gain an appreciation of, for example, the strict regulations that are in place to approve new non-destructive evaluation methods.
What in particular would you like readers to appreciate about the NDE 4.0 Group?
As mentioned, the Group covers both the application of NDE for Industry 4.0, as well as the application of Industry 4.0 for NDE. In both cases, there is an opportunity to increase the value offered to the customer by NDE and reduce the occasional perception that NDE is just a cost.
How can interested individuals get involved?
Please contact Eleanor Flower, Committee Secretary, at: eleanor.flower@bindt.org
Nick Brierley will be at the NDT 2025 conference in September in Edinburgh, so do look out for him (possibly manning the Diondo stand) if you have any queries.
The next group to be featured in the ‘In Focus’ column will be the Strategic NDT Leadership Forum in December 2025. If you have questions for this group, please send them to Corinne Mackle at ndtnews@bindt.org or Maria Felice at mvfelice@gmail.com
Looking for the People in NDE column? This column will continue on an occasional basis, so if you have any interviewees to recommend, or would like to be featured yourself, please contact the editor at ndtnews@bindt.org or email Maria Felice at mvfelice@gmail.com
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