Maintenance App for NDT Companies: Instruments, Vehicles and Site Equipment

Preventive and corrective maintenance requests for instruments, vehicles and site equipment. Request a demo. Affordable. Accessible. Fully customizable. Quote on request.

What the Maintenance app does for an NDT company

An NDT company runs on kit. Flaw detectors, phased array units, eddy current instruments, MT yokes, UV lamps, film processors, crawlers, compressors, generators, lighting towers, site cabins and the vans that carry all of it from one job to the next. When any of that fails at the wrong moment, a crew stands idle on a client's site and the day's billing goes with it.

The Maintenance app in Atlantis NDT ERP is where your team raises, plans and closes maintenance work on that equipment. It is the standard Atlantis ERP Maintenance app, set up by Atlantis NDT for the way inspection companies actually work: equipment grouped into categories a technician recognises, maintenance teams that match your workshop and your outside contractors, and request stages your coordinator can read at a glance.

Two kinds of work live here. Preventive requests are the routine jobs you know are coming: a generator service after a shutdown, a crawler's cables and wheels checked between pipeline jobs, a van booked in for its service before the busy season. Corrective requests are the ones nobody planned: a cracked probe cable, a battery pack that no longer lasts a shift, a van with a warning light on the way to site.

Calibration is deliberately kept out of this app. Calibration certificates, due dates, labs and pass/fail results belong in Asset Management, where each instrument's serial number already carries its full history. The Maintenance app runs the request workflow; Asset Management holds the instrument record. That split is explained in more detail further down, because getting it right is what stops people entering the same thing twice.

The problems it is meant to stop

Most NDT companies don't lack good technicians. They lack a single place where equipment problems get written down. The usual pattern looks something like this:

• A technician comes back from a turnaround and mentions in passing that the UT set's battery barely lasts half a shift. Nobody writes it down. The same unit goes out again on Monday.
• The crawler was due a service after the last pipeline spread, but the person who kept that in their head has left the company.
• A generator on a remote site gets serviced by a local contractor, and the only record is a phone photo of a handwritten job card.
• The workshop has three repairs queued, the operations manager thinks there is one, and a job gets promised with kit that is on the bench in pieces.
• An auditor asks how you maintain site equipment, and the answer is a spreadsheet last touched before the previous audit.

None of these are dramatic failures. They are small gaps that add up to idle crews, last-minute hire of replacement kit, awkward calls with clients and weak answers at audit time.

The Maintenance app closes those gaps by making every request visible to everyone who needs to see it. A technician, a stores person or a coordinator raises the request against the right piece of equipment. The request sits on a board where the workshop and operations both see it. It moves through stages until it is done, and when it is done it stays on the equipment's history for the next person who asks.

It is not complicated software, and that is the point. If raising a request takes longer than sending a message, people will keep sending messages.

Setting up your equipment, categories and teams

The app starts with a list of equipment. For an NDT company that list normally covers three groups:

• Inspection instruments and accessories: UT flaw detectors and thickness gauges, phased array and TOFD units, eddy current instruments, MT yokes and benches, UV lamps and light meters, PMI analysers, hardness testers, holiday detectors.
• Vehicles and transport: site vans, pickups, trailers, and any vehicle set aside for carrying radiography equipment.
• Site and workshop equipment: generators, compressors, crawlers, film processors and viewers, darkroom units, site cabins, lighting towers and the access equipment you own.

Each piece of equipment belongs to a category, and each category can be tied to a maintenance team. A team is simply the group of people who pick up that kind of work. Your instrument workshop might be one team. Vehicle work handled by an outside garage might sit with a second team, with your fleet coordinator as the responsible person. Site equipment could go to a small base team or to the base supervisor.

Equipment records carry a responsible person, where the item is used, the vendor, model and serial number, warranty information and free notes. For instruments that also live in Asset Management, the serial number is the common thread, so a technician looking at a maintenance request and a stores person looking at the instrument record are talking about the same box.

During implementation Atlantis NDT works through your equipment list with you, agrees categories that make sense to the people who will use them, and loads the initial data. It is also a good moment to find the kit nobody has seen in a while.

Preventive maintenance: routine work that actually happens

Preventive requests are where the app earns its place. A preventive request can be set to repeat on a fixed interval, so when one service is done the next one is already waiting with its date. Nobody has to remember that the compressor is due again in three months.

Typical preventive schedules for an NDT company include:

• Regular servicing of generators and compressors used on site.
• Servicing crawlers and checking their cables between projects.
• Routine work in the darkroom: processor cleaning, chemistry changes, viewer checks.
• Routine inspection of MT yokes, prods and cables, and of UV lamps against what your procedures require.
• Vehicle servicing on a set interval.
• Checks on radiography equipment required by your radiation safety programme. Your programme and your regulator define what those checks are and how often; the app keeps them coming round on time and records that they were done.

Each request has a scheduled date, an expected duration, a responsible person and a priority. The maintenance calendar view shows what is due and when, which matters most before a busy period. If a shutdown starts in three weeks, you can see what should be serviced before crews mobilise, and pull it forward instead of discovering the problem on day two of the outage.

Preventive work on inspection instruments has a nuance. Some of it is maintenance (cleaning, battery replacement, firmware updates, probe replacement) and some of it is calibration or verification. The Maintenance app is a good place to schedule the job. The detailed record of what was done to the instrument, including its condition before and after, belongs in the instrument's maintenance log in Asset Management, and calibration results belong in its calibration records. Your implementation agrees which team records what, so the same work is never keyed in two places.

Corrective requests: when something breaks on a job

Corrective maintenance is the unplanned kind, and in NDT it usually starts on a client's site. A probe cable gets crushed under a scaffold board. A yoke stops switching. A generator won't start on a cold morning. The technician's first job is to keep the inspection going with whatever spare is available. The second job, which is usually forgotten, is to tell someone.

The Maintenance app makes that second step short. Because Atlantis NDT ERP runs in a web browser, a technician or site supervisor can open a request from a phone: pick the equipment, describe the fault, add a photo if it helps, and submit. The request lands in the New stage on the workshop's board.

From there the flow is simple:

1. New request: the workshop or equipment coordinator sees it, sets the priority and assigns a person.
2. In progress: the item is being looked at, repaired in-house or sent to the manufacturer or a repair vendor.
3. Repaired: the work is done and the item can go back into service.
4. Scrap: the item is beyond economic repair and is taken out of use.

Stages can be renamed or extended during implementation if your workshop needs, for example, a separate stage for items waiting on parts or away at the manufacturer.

Every request stays on the equipment record. Over time that history answers the questions that matter: which instruments keep coming back, which vehicle is costing more time off the road than it is worth, whether a particular model of crawler is suited to your work at all. Those are conversations owners and operations managers usually have from memory. With the history in one place, they can have them from the record.

If an instrument is going to be out of service for a while, its lifecycle status in Asset Management (for example, in repair) tells operations it is not available for the next job.

Maintenance and calibration: where each record lives

The most common confusion when NDT companies set up an ERP is deciding where equipment information belongs. Atlantis NDT ERP keeps a clear split so each record has one home:

In practice this means the Maintenance app is the front door for anything that needs doing, while the specialist records stay where the specialist apps can use them. A workshop technician closes a request in Maintenance; the equipment controller updates the instrument's log and status in Asset Management. For vehicles and site equipment that are not inspection instruments, the Maintenance app's own history is usually enough.

If your company prefers a different split, for example keeping all instrument work only in Asset Management and using Maintenance purely for vehicles and site equipment, that is agreed during implementation. What matters is that everyone knows the rule.

Who uses it day to day

The Maintenance app is used by more people than most NDT companies expect, but each of them only needs a small part of it.

• Field technicians raise corrective requests from site when something fails or starts behaving oddly. They don't need training beyond a few minutes on how to find the equipment and describe the fault.
• Workshop or equipment technicians work the board: pick up requests, update stages, record what was done and close them out.
• Equipment controllers and stores staff watch for requests on instruments that are due to be issued, and keep Asset Management status in line with what the workshop is doing.
• Operations managers and coordinators look at the maintenance calendar before committing kit to a job, and check open requests before a big mobilisation.
• Fleet coordinators handle vehicle servicing requests and bookings with outside garages.
• QA/QC managers and Level IIIs use the history when a client audit or internal audit asks how equipment is maintained, and when deciding whether a repeatedly failing item should stay in service.
• Owners and general managers look at the history when deciding whether to repair, replace or retire expensive kit.

Access rights are set per role. A technician can raise and follow requests without seeing things they don't need, while the workshop and managers get the full view. Notifications go through the normal Atlantis ERP channels, so the person assigned to a request sees it in their inbox and activity list rather than having to go looking.

How it connects to the rest of Atlantis NDT ERP

The Maintenance app is not meant to stand alone. Its value comes from sitting next to the apps that decide where equipment goes and what it costs.

• Asset Management holds every instrument by serial number, with its issue and return records, reservations, maintenance log and calibration certificates. Maintenance requests and instrument records share the same serial numbers.
• Team Assignments blocks double-booking of equipment serial numbers across jobs and warns when assigned equipment is out of calibration. Keeping maintenance status current means dispatch decisions are made on real availability.
• Fleet holds vehicle-specific data, including whether a vehicle can carry radioactive sources and its transport licence details. Maintenance requests for vehicles sit alongside that record.
• Purchase records vendors by type (OEM, dealer, calibration lab) and lets order lines be linked to a specific equipment serial, so the spare probe or repair bought for a unit is traceable to it.
• Calendar and To-do give managers one place to see scheduled maintenance next to meetings and their own follow-ups.
• Dashboards show NDT equipment KPIs such as calibration due and overdue, and issued equipment overdue for return.

Atlantis NDT ERP as a whole is described on the NDT ERP overview. If you want to see how these apps fit together on your own equipment list, book a Maintenance app demo and bring a sample of your kit register.

What implementation looks like

Atlantis NDT sets up and deploys the ERP for you. For the Maintenance app, implementation usually runs through these steps:

1. Equipment review. We go through your current registers, spreadsheets and workshop notes and agree what goes into Maintenance, what goes into Asset Management and what goes into Fleet.
2. Categories and teams. Categories are named in your technicians' language, and each is tied to the right maintenance team and responsible person.
3. Preventive schedules. Recurring preventive requests are created for the equipment that needs them, with intervals taken from your manufacturers' guidance, your procedures and your radiation safety programme.
4. Stages and rules. Request stages are confirmed or adjusted, and access rights are set for technicians, workshop, managers and stores.
5. Data load. Your equipment list is imported, including serial numbers that match the instrument records in Asset Management.
6. Training. Short sessions for each role: raising a request from a phone, working the board, reading the calendar.
7. Go-live and support. We stay with you through the first weeks while the habit forms.

Because the product is fully customizable, anything specific to your operation, such as extra fields on requests, a different set of stages or reports your QA manager wants for audits, is scoped and agreed with you before work starts. Pricing depends on that scope, so it is quote on request. Request a quote for the Maintenance app and tell us roughly how much equipment and how many locations you run.

What the Maintenance app is not

It helps to be clear about scope so nobody buys the wrong thing.

The Maintenance app is for your own company's equipment: the instruments, vehicles and site kit you own or rent and use to deliver inspections. It is not a system for managing your clients' plant assets, their inspection intervals or their integrity programmes. That work belongs to the asset owner and their own systems.

It is not a calibration laboratory system either. Calibration results, certificates and due dates are recorded in Asset Management, but the calibration itself is done by your provider or your own qualified staff according to your procedures.

It does not make decisions for you. It will not decide that an instrument is fit for use; your equipment controller and Level III do that. It records what was requested, what was done, by whom and when, so that decision is made on evidence rather than memory.

And it does not replace your radiation safety programme. Where your regulator requires specific checks on radiography equipment, the app can schedule and record them, but the programme itself, and the responsibility for it, stay with your Radiation Safety Officer.

Within that scope, it does one job well: making sure equipment problems get written down, picked up and closed, and that the history is there when someone needs it.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Maintenance app the same as calibration tracking?

No. The Maintenance app handles preventive and corrective requests. Calibration records, calibration certificates and due dates are held in Asset Management against each instrument's serial number, with expiry alerts. The two share serial numbers, so they work together without duplicate entry.

Can technicians raise requests from site?

Yes. Atlantis NDT ERP runs in a web browser, so a technician with a phone and a signal can open a request against the right equipment, describe the fault and attach a photo. The request appears straight away on the workshop's board.

Can it handle vehicles as well as instruments?

Yes. Vehicles can be set up as equipment with their own category and maintenance team, so servicing and repairs are requested and tracked in the same way. Vehicle-specific details, such as whether a vehicle can carry radioactive sources and its transport licence, are kept in the Fleet app.

How are preventive schedules set?

Preventive requests repeat on an interval you choose. During implementation the intervals are taken from your manufacturers' guidance, your procedures and your radiation safety programme, and loaded for each item that needs them.

Will it stop out-of-service kit being sent to a job?

It makes out-of-service kit visible. Instrument status in Asset Management (for example, in repair) shows what is not available, and Team Assignments warns when assigned equipment is out of calibration. Keeping requests and statuses current is what makes those checks useful.

Can we add our own fields or stages?

Yes. The ERP is fully customizable. Extra fields, stages or reports are agreed as part of the customization scope before implementation starts.

How much does it cost?

Atlantis NDT ERP is priced to be affordable for NDT companies of any size, but every setup is different, so pricing is quote on request after a short conversation about your equipment and locations.

See it with your own equipment list

The fastest way to judge the Maintenance app is to see your own kit in it: your yokes, your crawlers, your vans, your generators, with the requests your workshop actually deals with. Send us a sample of your equipment register and a few recent breakdowns, and we will walk you through how they would look in Atlantis NDT ERP, alongside Asset Management, Fleet and Team Assignments.

Affordable. Accessible. Fully customizable. Book a demo of the Maintenance app, or browse the other NDT ERP apps first.

Works with

• Team Assignments: Assign qualified technicians and crews to jobs by method, level and availability.
• Project: Inspection projects, tasks and milestones from award to final report.
• Timesheets: Technician hours per job, feeding payroll and client invoicing.
• Asset Management: NDT equipment by serial number: issue and return, reservations, calibration and maintenance history.
• Fleet: Vehicles, drivers and service records for field crews.
• Calendar: Shared schedules for jobs, audits and client meetings.
• To-do: Personal and team task lists linked to jobs and records.

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