NDT Technician Certification Tracking in the Middle East

Technician certifications, eye tests and expiry tracking against your written practice. Request a demo. Affordable. Accessible. Fully customizable. Quote on request.

Many schemes, many nationalities, one register

An NDT company in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar or Kuwait rarely has a uniform workforce. A single turnaround crew might include technicians from India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Egypt and further afield, holding ASNT-based certificates from previous employers, ASNT 9712 (formerly ACCP) or ASNT Level III certificates, ISO 9712 certificates from PCN or other national bodies, and client approvals issued in the region. Each scheme has its own validity rules, and each client has its own view of which it accepts.

Then come the documents that have nothing to do with NDT but still stop a technician working: residency and work permits, site passes, medical fitness, H2S and safety training. When crews rotate in and out and dozens of people are hired for a shutdown, the tracker that worked for twenty permanent staff falls apart.

The Certificates app in Atlantis NDT ERP keeps every certificate, vision test and exam record on the technician’s employee record, computes status daily, creates a warning task 90 days before anything expires, and sends daily email alerts to the people you choose.

Atlantis NDT’s own training is based on ASNT SNT-TC-1A. The app records ISO 9712, PCN and CSWIP certificates your technicians hold, but Atlantis does not train or certify for those schemes.

ASNT and ISO 9712 side by side

Both major schemes are common in the Gulf. Many companies certify their technicians under an in-house SNT-TC-1A written practice, often because owners’ specifications reference ASNT, while technicians recruited from Europe or South Asia may hold ISO 9712 certificates from PCN or national bodies. Some hold both.

Each certification is its own record in the app: scheme (SNT-TC-1A, CP-189, ISO 9712, PCN, CSWIP or other), level, method, certifying body, issue, expiry and renewal dates, industry sector, OJT hours, training hours, exam passed and attachments. Certificate templates per scheme carry validity in months, vision test and exam requirements, and minimum OJT and training hours, so an ASNT certificate and an ISO 9712 certificate for the same person each follow their own rules.

The certifying body field matters here. Under SNT-TC-1A, certification is employer-based, so a technician who arrives holding a previous employer’s ASNT certificate normally needs to be certified under your written practice. Recording the previous certificate with its certifying body and adding your own makes that transition clear, and examination sheets record the general, specific and practical scores and exam files for your certification. The passing score defaults to 70% and can be set to match your written practice.

Verifying incoming certificates is part of the job too. Attaching the scanned certificate, together with any verification you receive from the issuing body, means a client reviewer can see not just the certificate but that you checked it.

Saudi Aramco and client approvals

In Saudi Arabia, working for Saudi Aramco means following its engineering standards and procedures (the SAES and SAEP series), its inspection requirements and its contractor approval processes. NDT personnel on Aramco work are typically expected to be qualified and approved under Aramco’s requirements, which can include client-administered examinations and approval cards with their own expiry, on top of their ASNT or ISO 9712 certificates. SABIC and other owners run their own vendor and personnel requirements.

In the Certificates app, a client approval can be recorded as an other-scheme certificate on the technician’s record, with its method, level, expiry, template and scanned card. It then appears in the same Expiring Soon and Expired lists, warning tasks and email alerts as the technician’s ASNT certificate. A planner can see immediately whether someone is both certified and client-approved for the method a job requires.

Requirements change, and the precise rules for a project come from the contract and the client’s current standards, so the templates are set up with you during implementation rather than assumed. What the app gives you is a place to hold whatever the client requires, with dates that are checked every day.

ADNOC, QatarEnergy, KNPC and the wider Gulf

In the UAE, ADNOC and its group companies run pre-qualification for contractors and review the qualifications of inspection personnel on their onshore and offshore sites. In Qatar, work at Ras Laffan and Mesaieed for QatarEnergy follows its own contractor and personnel requirements. In Kuwait, KNPC’s Mina Al-Ahmadi and Al-Zour refineries set theirs. Oman, Bahrain and the petrochemical complexes across the region add more.

Each owner has its own document checklist, and an NDT company working for several of them needs to produce different packs from the same people. Because each technician’s certificates, vision test, medical fitness and radiation details sit on one record with attachments, a pack for ADNOC and a pack for KNPC come from the same source instead of separate folders per client.

Third-party inspection agencies acting for these owners frequently audit NDT subcontractors’ personnel records. A register where every certificate carries a certifying body, dates, status and the scanned evidence stands up to that review.

Company approvals matter just as much. Registration as an approved vendor, ISO 9001 and ISO 45001 certificates and other accreditations your clients require can be tracked as company certifications with their own alert days, so a renewal or re-audit is planned before it can affect a tender.

Residency, medicals and site documents

For expatriate crews, NDT qualifications are only part of the picture. A technician with a valid Level II certificate still can’t work if their iqama or residence visa has lapsed, their medical is out of date, or their site pass or H2S training has expired.

The Certificates app’s NDT profile includes medical fitness expiry, alongside highest level, methods certified, radiation safety training and radiation badge number. Safety training such as H2S certificates can be tracked as other-scheme certificates with expiry dates and scans, so they receive the same warning tasks and email alerts as NDT certificates.

Residency and passport documents are not a built-in part of the Certificates app. If you want iqama, visa, passport and site pass expiries on the same record with the same kind of warnings, that is configured during implementation as part of the customization scope agreed with you, so HR and operations work from one list.

The payoff comes at mobilisation. When a client calls on a Thursday for twelve technicians on Sunday, the question is not only who is certified but who can legally travel to site and pass the gate. The fewer places that answer lives in, the faster you can respond.

Vision tests for a rotating workforce

Both ASNT-based and ISO 9712 schemes require regular near-vision tests, J2 under SNT-TC-1A and J1 under ISO 9712, and Gulf clients check them. Technicians often take their eye tests at local clinics or before arriving from their home country, so certificates arrive in different formats and languages.

Vision tests are separate records in the app: near vision (J1 or J2), far vision, colour perception, contrast, examiner, clinic, certificate file and expiry. The daily check creates a warning task 90 days before each test expires, which gives time to book a test before a technician leaves on annual leave or before the next shutdown, rather than after.

Recording J1 or J2 shows which scheme a test satisfies, which matters for technicians holding both ASNT and ISO 9712 certificates. Colour perception results matter for PT and colour-contrast MT. Recording the examiner and clinic also gives a client reviewer something to check when a test was done overseas.

Radiography: NRRC, FANR and source crews

Industrial radiography is licensed by national regulators, including the Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Commission in Saudi Arabia and the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation in the UAE, with equivalent authorities elsewhere in the Gulf. Licensed companies must show that radiographers are trained in radiation safety, that personal dosimetry is in place and that a radiation protection officer oversees the work.

On the NDT profile, the Certificates app records radiation safety training and radiation badge number. Radiation worker or protection officer certificates can be recorded as other-scheme certificates with expiry and scans, so they are warned 90 days out. The Fleet app records whether a vehicle can carry radioactive sources and its transport licence number and expiry.

The app does not replace your licence records or regulator submissions. It keeps your radiographers’ qualifications and radiation-related dates in one place for the radiation protection officer to check before a crew leaves the camp.

Shutdown and turnaround season

Turnarounds in the Gulf are concentrated in the cooler months, and they are where tracking breaks down. Crews expand quickly, short-term technicians join from other companies or from overseas, and every one of them needs checking before the client’s review.

The app helps in two ways. For your core crew, warning tasks generated 90 days ahead let renewals be pulled forward before the season starts, instead of being discovered mid-shutdown. For new arrivals, certificates, vision tests and client approvals are entered on hire with scans attached, so they appear in the same lists and alerts as everyone else.

Timesheets then act as a backstop: if hours are logged for a technician whose certificate is not valid, the timesheet shows a warning before the hours are approved and billed. Planners working in the Team Assignments app see double-booking of technicians and equipment blocked and out-of-calibration equipment flagged; a certificate check at dispatch can be added in your customization scope.

When the shutdown ends, short-term technicians’ records stay in the system with their certificates and history. If you bring the same people back next season, you start from their existing record rather than a blank form.

Who uses it in a Gulf NDT company

Everyone works from the same record, so the register survives staff rotation in the office as well as on site.

How it connects and what setup looks like

Certificates links to the rest of Atlantis NDT ERP. Dashboards show certificates expiring and expired next to calibration due and overdue. Daily email alerts cover technician certificates, calibration certificates and company certifications, with recipients, look-ahead days and resend intervals you set. VAT invoicing is configured locally during implementation in the Invoicing app, and the interface can be set up in Arabic and English.

A typical Gulf setup covers templates for your SNT-TC-1A written practice, ISO 9712 and PCN, client approvals, H2S and radiation worker certificates; import of your current tracker with scans; alerts for QA, the radiation protection officer, HR and operations; any extra fields for residency documents agreed in your customization scope; and access rights for medical data. Reports signed in the NDT Reports app, and results placed on 3D models of plant assets through Atlantis’s separate Digital Twin Reporting Software, rest on these records. For technicians working towards SNT-TC-1A certification, Atlantis also runs ASNT SNT-TC-1A-based training.

To see your crew register in the app, book a Certificates demo.

Frequently asked questions

Can we track ASNT and ISO 9712 certificates for the same technician?

Yes. Each is its own record with its own scheme, method, level, certifying body and dates, and each shows its own status.

Can the app record Aramco or other client approvals?

Yes, as other-scheme certificates with method, level, expiry, template and scanned card, so they get the same warnings as NDT certificates. The exact client requirements are confirmed with you during implementation.

Does it track iqama and visa expiry?

Not as a built-in feature. Residency, passport and site pass expiries can be added during implementation as part of your customization scope. Medical fitness expiry is already on the NDT profile.

Does Atlantis NDT provide ISO 9712 or PCN certification?

No. Atlantis NDT’s training is based on ASNT SNT-TC-1A. The app records ISO 9712, PCN and CSWIP certificates issued by their own bodies.

How early are we warned about expiring certificates?

Certificates show as expiring soon 90 days before expiry, with warning tasks for certificates and vision tests at the same point. Email alert look-ahead days and resend intervals are configurable.

Can we track company approvals and ISO certificates?

Yes. Company certifications such as vendor approvals and ISO registrations are tracked with their own alert days.

Get your crew register ready before the next shutdown

Send us a sample of your current tracker and the client requirements your crews face, and we will show you how it looks in the app. Affordable, accessible and fully customizable. Request a quote for the Middle East and we will scope it with you.

Certificates by region

Works with

Send an enquiry about Certificates · All ERP apps · Atlantis NDT ERP

Built for any business that runs on operations

Most companies do not fail at their craft. They lose time, margin and goodwill in the gaps between the tools they use to run the place — a quoting spreadsheet that does not talk to the job sheet, a job sheet that does not reach accounts, and a compliance folder nobody can search when a client asks. Atlantis closes those gaps by putting the whole operation on one platform, so information is entered once and everything downstream stays in step.

What you can run on it

  • Sales and CRM — leads, quotes, follow-ups and the pipeline that tells you what next month looks like.
  • Projects and job costing — plan the work, track the hours and materials against it, and see the margin while the job is still live rather than at final account.
  • Field and service teams — dispatch, schedules, mobile capture that works with no signal, and sign-off from site.
  • Inventory and purchasing — stock, suppliers, reorder points and goods receipt, joined to the jobs that consume them.
  • People — records, qualifications and licences with renewal reminders, timesheets, leave and payroll.
  • Quality and documents — procedures and forms under revision control, with the audit trail an inspection or accreditation body actually asks for.
  • Accounts — invoicing, expenses, multi-currency and the reporting your accountant stops chasing you for.

Affordable, accessible, fully customizable — and we mean each word

Affordable because the whole suite is included rather than sold to you a module at a time, and because implementation is done by people who have run operations rather than by a chain of subcontractors. Accessible because it runs in a browser and on a phone, works for a small team on day one, and does not need a specialist on staff to keep it alive. Fully customizable because your process is the thing that makes you competitive — the software should bend to it, not the other way round.

Industries we configure for

Service businesses and contractors, manufacturing and fabrication, trading and distribution, laboratories and testing houses, engineering consultancies, construction and facilities, and asset owners across energy, marine, aerospace and infrastructure. Inspection and testing is where we started, and it remains the sector we go deepest in — but the platform underneath is general-purpose, and most of what it does has nothing to do with inspection at all.

What happens when you get in touch

A short conversation, not a sales sequence. We ask how the business runs today and where it hurts, show you the platform doing that work, and send a written quote shaped to your region, your team size and the scope you actually need. No obligation, nothing to install first, and no pressure to decide on the call. Reach out and tell us what you are trying to fix.

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Speak to an ASNT NDT Level III

Atlantis NDT provides ASNT Level III consulting, NDT training to ASNT SNT-TC-1A, inspection management software and independent report validation. Request a free consultation and we will return a tailored quote — affordable, accessible and fully customizable to your programme.