NDT Procedure Management Software: Write, Approve and Control Procedures

Controlled NDT procedures and techniques with revisions and approvals. Request a demo. Affordable. Accessible. Fully customizable. Quote on request.

Why NDT procedures slip out of control

Every NDT company runs on its procedures. The UT procedure for butt welds, the RT procedure for piping spools, the MT and PT procedures your technicians carry to every shutdown. Auditors ask for them, clients approve them before work starts, and your reports have to quote them by number and revision. Yet in most inspection companies the procedure library lives in a shared drive, a few email threads and the Level III’s laptop.

That is where the trouble starts. A technician on site opens Rev 3 of a procedure that was replaced by Rev 4 two months ago. A client asks who approved the current PAUT procedure and nobody can find the signed cover page. An auditor asks what changed between revisions and the answer is “let me check with the Level III”. A report goes out quoting a procedure number that no longer exists.

None of this is about careless people. It is about a document set that changes constantly — new client specifications, new code editions, new equipment, new materials — without one place that says which revision is current, who approved it, and when.

The Procedures app in the Atlantis NDT ERP gives you that place. It is a controlled procedure register with a proper approval workflow, locked approved revisions and a full revision history, built into the same system that runs your jobs, technicians, equipment and reports. It is affordable, accessible and fully customizable to the way your quality system already works, and Atlantis NDT sets it up for you.

What the Procedures app holds

Each procedure is a record in a single register, not a loose file. The record carries the information a reviewer, an auditor or a client needs at a glance:

• Document number and revision — following your own numbering convention, so the procedure listed as UT-004 Rev 2 in the register is the same one quoted on your reports.
• Method — UT, RT, MT, PT, VT, ET, TOFD, PAUT, leak testing, acoustic emission, hardness, PMI, computed and digital radiography and more.
• Scope — what the procedure covers: product form, weld configuration, thickness range, new construction or in-service.
• Material — carbon steel, stainless, duplex, nickel alloys, aluminium, whatever the procedure is written for.
• Applicable standard — for example ASME Section V, or the client or national standard the procedure implements.
• Acceptance criteria — the reference for accept and reject, so nobody has to hunt through the body text to find it.
• Body text or uploaded file — write the procedure directly in the record, or attach the controlled document your Level III already produced.

Because every procedure sits in one list, you can filter by method, standard or status in seconds. “Show me every approved RT procedure written to ASME Section V” becomes a search, not an afternoon of opening folders. When a client sends a pre-qualification questionnaire asking for your procedure list, you pull it from the register rather than building it by hand.

The register also answers the question that matters most on site: which revision is current. Only the published revision is the one people should be working to, and the status on the record says so plainly.

The approval workflow, step by step

A procedure is only worth something once the right people have reviewed and approved it. The app runs every procedure through a defined workflow:

1. Draft — the author writes or uploads the procedure. Nothing in draft is a working document.
2. Submitted — the author submits it for review and the people who need to act are notified by email.
3. Reviewed — the reviewer checks the technical content against the code and the client specification and records the review.
4. Approved — the approver, normally your Level III for that method, approves it. The approved revision is locked.
5. Published — the revision is released as the current working document.

Two more states cover real life. Rejected sends a procedure back with a reason the author can see — “scanning sensitivity section does not reflect the client specification”, for example — instead of a vague comment in a corridor. Archived retires procedures you no longer use without deleting them, so the history is still there when an auditor asks about a job from three years ago.

At each step the record captures who prepared, reviewed and approved the procedure and on which dates. That is the evidence clients and certification auditors ask for: a clear line from author to approver, with dates, for every revision.

Pending approvals do not sit forgotten. The app sends email notifications and reminders to approvers, which matters when your Level III is on a plane, on a client audit or covering several offices. The procedure waits in the queue and the reminder keeps it visible until someone acts.

Revision control that stands up to an audit

Procedures change for good reasons. A client issues a new specification. A code edition changes a requirement. You buy a new phased array unit and the set-up changes. A technician finds on site that the scan plan does not work for a nozzle geometry. Each of those changes should produce a new revision, reviewed and approved like the first.

The Procedures app keeps a full revision history for every procedure, with a snapshot of each revision. When Rev 4 is approved, Rev 3 is not overwritten; it is kept exactly as it was approved. That gives you three things a shared drive cannot:

• Proof of what was in force on a given date. If a client queries a report from last year, you can show the exact revision the technician worked to.
• A clear view of what changed. Reviewers and auditors can compare the snapshot of the old revision with the new one instead of trusting a change note.
• No silent edits. Approved revisions are locked. A change means a new revision going through the workflow, not someone quietly fixing an approved document that clients have already accepted.

This is the part that usually breaks in small and mid-sized inspection companies. The first version of a procedure is often well controlled. By the fifth revision there are three copies with slightly different content and nobody is sure which one the client approved. Locking approved revisions and keeping snapshots removes that doubt from the start.

Your document control rules — revision letters or numbers, how a minor editorial change is handled, how long archived revisions are kept — are set up to match your quality manual during implementation.

AI-assisted first drafts, with a Level III in charge

Writing a procedure from a blank page is slow. The structure is always similar — scope, references, personnel qualification, equipment, calibration, technique, scanning or exposure details, evaluation, acceptance criteria, reporting — but getting all of it down for a new method, material or client specification still takes hours.

The Procedures app can produce an AI-assisted first draft of a procedure from the details you enter: method, scope, material, applicable standard and acceptance criteria. If the AI service is not available, it falls back to a built-in template, so the author still starts from a proper structure rather than an empty page.

Be clear about what this is. The AI draft is a starting point for a qualified author. It does not qualify a procedure, it does not approve anything, and it cannot know the details of your equipment, your client’s specification or the component on site. The draft goes through the same workflow as any other procedure: an author edits it, a reviewer checks it, and a Level III reviews and approves it before it is published. Nothing reaches technicians without that sign-off.

Used that way, the draft takes the typing out of the job and leaves the engineering to the people who carry the responsibility. Your Level III spends their time on the technical content — the technique, the sensitivity, the acceptance criteria — rather than on formatting headings and copying the reference list from the last procedure.

If you do not have a Level III in-house, or yours is overloaded, Atlantis NDT also offers procedure writing and review as part of its NDT consulting services, carried out by ASNT Level III personnel.

Who uses the Procedures app

Different people touch procedures for different reasons. Access rights are set up to match those roles.

Level III and technical managers

They own the technical content. They author or review procedures, approve revisions, reject drafts with a reason, and see every procedure waiting for their decision. Email reminders keep that queue moving when they are travelling.

QA/QC and document control

They manage the register: numbering, revision rules, archiving and the procedure list sent to clients and auditors. They answer “which revision was in force” questions from the revision history rather than from memory.

Operations and project managers

They need to know that the procedure for a job is approved and published before the crew mobilises. They find it in the register by method and standard and reference it on the job.

Technicians and Level IIs

They need the current revision, and only the current revision. Published procedures are the working documents; drafts and archived revisions stay out of their way. Read access for field staff is configured to match how your company issues procedures.

Owners and general managers

They need confidence that the company will get through a client audit or an ISO 9001 surveillance visit without a scramble. A register with status, approvals and history on every procedure is the answer to that.

How Procedures connects to the rest of the ERP

A procedure register on its own is useful. Connected to the rest of your operation, it stops being a filing exercise and becomes part of how work gets done. The Procedures app sits inside the Atlantis NDT ERP alongside the other NDT apps:

• Projects and tasks. NDT jobs in the Project app carry methods, codes, scope and acceptance criteria, and each inspection task carries its procedure and WPS references. The procedure the job was planned against is the one the crew works to.
• NDT Reports. Every report type in the NDT Reports app captures procedure and standard references alongside the work order, WPS and drawing numbers, so the report on the client’s desk quotes the procedure number and revision that was actually used.
• Certificates. The Certificates app records your technicians’ and Level IIIs’ certifications by scheme, level and method, so you can see who holds a current Level III in the method before you route a procedure to them for approval.
• Quotations. Quotes record the applicable codes for a job, which is often the first sign that a new or revised procedure is needed before work can start.
• Dashboards. Procedure status can sit next to calibration due dates and expiring certifications on the KPI dashboards your managers already watch; the exact views are agreed during implementation.

For clients who want to see inspection results in context, Atlantis also offers Digital Twin Reporting Software, a separate companion product that places inspection results on a 3D model of the asset and works alongside the ERP’s NDT Reports app. You can see the full set of apps on the ERP apps overview.

Setting it up: what implementation looks like

Most NDT companies already have procedures. The job is to bring them under control without stopping work. A typical Procedures implementation with Atlantis NDT runs like this:

1. Inventory your current library. We list what you have: procedure numbers, current revisions, methods, standards and who approved them. Gaps and duplicates usually show up here.
2. Agree the rules. Numbering format, revision convention, who can author, who reviews, who approves for each method, and how archived revisions are kept. These reflect your quality manual and your written practice.
3. Load the register. Existing procedures go in as records with their current revision, method, scope, material, standard and acceptance criteria, with the controlled file attached or the text entered.
4. Set up access and notifications. Roles and approvers are configured, and email reminders are pointed at the right people.
5. Run the first revision through the workflow. Pick a procedure that is due for update and take it from draft to published with your real team. That is where the settings get tested and adjusted.
6. Connect it to jobs and reports. Project tasks and NDT reports reference procedures from the register, so the loop from quote to report is closed.

Anything specific to your quality system — extra fields a client insists on, a particular cover-page layout, a read-and-acknowledge step for technicians, bilingual versions — is part of the customization scope agreed with you. Pricing is quote on request and depends on the apps and scope you choose.

If you would like to see the workflow with your own numbering, book a Procedures demo and bring one of your current procedures along.

Procedures, written practice and technique sheets: keeping them straight

One common source of audit findings is the difference between documents that all get called “procedures”.

• The written practice is your company’s document for training, qualifying and certifying NDT personnel, for example under ASNT SNT-TC-1A or CP-189. It governs people, not techniques.
• NDT procedures describe how a method is applied to a class of work — technique, equipment, calibration, sensitivity, evaluation and acceptance — to meet a code or specification.
• Technique sheets or work instructions apply a procedure to a specific component or job, with the actual probe angles, exposure arrangement or scan plan.

All three need control, and all three can be held in the Procedures register, distinguished by a numbering convention agreed during setup, so the relationship is visible: which technique sheets sit under which procedure, and which written practice applies to the people doing the work.

Keeping them apart matters because they have different approvers and different triggers for revision. A new client specification may force a procedure revision; a new component geometry may need only a new technique sheet; a change in your certification approach touches the written practice. A single register that shows all three, with status and history, lets your Level III see the whole picture. Technician certifications themselves live in the Certificates app, and Atlantis offers SNT-TC-1A-based NDT training for companies building their Level I and Level II teams.

Frequently asked questions

What is NDT procedure management software?

It is a system for writing, reviewing, approving, publishing and revising NDT procedures in one controlled place. The Procedures app in the Atlantis NDT ERP holds each procedure with its number, revision, method, scope, material, standard and acceptance criteria, runs it through an approval workflow and keeps a snapshot of every revision.

Can we load our existing procedures?

Yes. Existing procedures are entered as records with their current revision and either the text or the controlled file attached. Loading your library is part of implementation, so you start with your real register, not an empty one.

Does the AI write procedures for us?

It writes a first draft only. The AI-assisted draft, or the built-in template if the AI service is unavailable, gives your author a structured starting point. A Level III still reviews and approves every procedure before it is published.

Can an approved procedure be edited?

No. Approved revisions are locked. Any change creates a new revision that goes through review and approval again, and the previous revision is kept as a snapshot in the history.

Who gets told when a procedure needs approval?

The approvers. The app sends email notifications and reminders for pending approvals, so a procedure does not sit unapproved while a job waits.

We don’t have a Level III on staff. Can you help?

Yes. Atlantis NDT offers procedure writing and review by ASNT Level III personnel through its consulting service. The procedures we write can then be loaded and controlled in the Procedures app.

Is the Procedures app sold on its own?

It is part of the Atlantis NDT ERP and is usually deployed with the other NDT apps, though the scope is up to you. Quotes are on request and based on the apps and customization you need.

See it with your own procedures

The quickest way to judge the Procedures app is to watch one of your own procedures go through it: loaded into the register, revised, rejected with a reason, corrected, approved, locked and published, with the old revision kept as a snapshot. That takes a short session, and it shows you exactly where your current process has gaps.

Send us your method mix, how many procedures you control today and who approves them, and we will shape the demo around that. Request a quote for the Procedures app, or ask for a walkthrough of the full ERP if you want to see how procedures tie into jobs, certificates, equipment and reports.

Procedures by region

• Procedures in United States
• Procedures in Canada
• Procedures in UK & Europe
• Procedures in Middle East
• Procedures in India

Works with

• NDT Reports: Method-specific NDT inspection reports, captured in the field and issued from the ERP.
• Certificates: Technician certifications, eye tests and expiry tracking against your written practice.
• Dashboards: KPI dashboards across jobs, reports, certifications and revenue.

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