NDT Crew Dispatch and Technician Scheduling in India

Assign qualified technicians and crews to jobs by method, level and availability. Request a demo. Affordable. Accessible. Fully customizable. Quote on request.

Scheduling NDT crews in India

An Indian NDT company typically works for a mix of clients that could hardly be more different: public sector refineries and gas companies with tender-driven contracts, large private refining and petrochemical complexes, power utilities, fabrication shops building IBR boilers and PESO-regulated vessels, and offshore platforms off the west coast. Crews travel long distances by road, rail and air. Many technicians also go abroad on Gulf contracts for months at a time, then come back and expect work.

The dispatcher's job is to fit that together: the right certified people, with the right approvals, carrying calibrated equipment, to a site that may be two days' travel away, on dates that a client's shutdown plan fixes months ahead and then changes at a week's notice. Most companies still manage it with Excel, WhatsApp groups and the coordinator's memory.

Team Assignments, part of Atlantis NDT ERP, puts every job in one scheduling record: site and GPS coordinates, mobilisation and demobilisation dates, crew and equipment serial numbers. Jobs move from planned to dispatched, in field, submitted and closed. The technician availability calendar holds assigned, leave, training, sick and unavailable time, and overlaps are blocked. Technicians and equipment serials cannot be double-booked, and the app warns when assigned equipment is out of calibration. Each technician shows status, current assignment, utilisation percentage and next available date, in calendar, kanban and list views.

Refinery shutdowns, the monsoon and festival season

India's refineries and petrochemical complexes, from Jamnagar and Vadodara in Gujarat to Panipat, Mathura, Mumbai, Kochi, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Bongaigaon, run planned shutdowns that bring sudden demand for large NDT crews. Owners generally avoid the south-west monsoon for major outdoor work, since heavy rain between June and September makes scaffolded, outdoor inspection slow and sometimes impossible, especially on the west coast. That pushes shutdowns into the drier months, when the whole industry is looking for UT, RT and PAUT technicians at once.

The festival season adds another constraint. Around Diwali and other major festivals, many technicians travel home, sometimes across the country, and a crew that looks full on paper can be half empty. Leave approved in Time Off feeds the availability calendar, so festival leave blocks dispatch for those dates instead of being discovered on the day.

Ahead of shutdown season, the calendar shows real commitments months ahead, and the next available date on each technician tells your commercial team when named people can join. During the shutdown, the kanban view shows jobs still planned, crews in field and submitted jobs waiting for report approval before closing and invoicing. When a shutdown extends, move the demobilisation date; any overlap with the crew's next job is blocked, so the clash is visible immediately.

Utilisation per technician shows who has been idle between shutdowns and who has done back-to-back jobs without a break, which helps with both margins and keeping good people.

PSU tenders and named personnel

Public sector undertakings such as IOCL, BPCL, HPCL, ONGC, GAIL and NTPC buy NDT services mostly through tenders. Tender documents commonly require contractors to name the technicians they will deploy and submit their CVs and certificates, and substituting a named person later often needs the client's approval. Some contracts include penalties for delay or for deploying unapproved staff.

That turns scheduling into a commercial issue. If the Level II you named in the bid is on another job when the work order arrives, you either delay or ask for a substitution. Team Assignments helps at both stages. At bid time, next available dates and the calendar show which qualified people you can realistically commit for the contract period. When the work order comes, the named technicians can be assigned and blocked, and nobody else can book them over those dates.

The Certificates app holds the evidence: each technician's scheme, level, method, certifying body, dates and certificate files, ready to attach to a bid or show during a client audit. PSU work also generates a lot of documentation at closure, and moving a job from submitted to closed only once reports are approved gives you a clean record of who worked on which contract and when.

None of this implies that any PSU endorses a particular system. It is simply how contractors keep their own records straight against their clients' requirements.

ONGC offshore and west coast rotations

Offshore inspection on the western offshore fields, including the Mumbai High area, runs on rotations, commonly fourteen days on and fourteen off, with crews travelling by helicopter from Mumbai or by supply vessel. Offshore personnel need survival and safety training and medical fitness before mobilisation, and the monsoon affects flying and marine operations.

In Team Assignments each offshore trip is an assignment, with the mobilisation date on the day of travel and demobilisation on the planned return. Rotation days off can be recorded as unavailable so they do not appear as spare capacity. When weather delays a return, move the date; overlaps with the technician's next job are blocked, so the coordinator sees which job needs a replacement.

Equipment goes offshore for the whole trip. Once booked by serial number it cannot be booked elsewhere, and the calibration warning helps you avoid sending a gauge or flaw detector whose calibration falls due while it is on the platform. The employee NDT profile records medical fitness expiry, so the coordinator can see it before finalising the crew. Tracking offshore training expiry per technician can be configured during implementation.

ISO 9712 and ASNT certificates side by side

Indian technicians very often hold more than one certificate. Many have ISO 9712 certification from a third-party body, many are certified by their employer under an ASNT SNT-TC-1A written practice, and technicians with Gulf experience may bring further certificates from abroad. Clients differ in what they accept: some PSU tenders specify one scheme, international EPCs may want another, and foreign-owned plants often follow ASNT.

The Certificates app stores each certificate as its own record, with scheme, level, method, certifying body, issue, expiry and renewal dates, OJT and training hours, and attachments. Status is calculated automatically as active, expiring soon, expired or revoked, and warning tasks appear 90 days before expiry. Vision tests, with near vision, colour perception, examiner and clinic, have their own expiry and warnings. Daily email alerts go to the people you choose, and Timesheets warn when a technician's cert is not valid.

Atlantis NDT offers training based on ASNT SNT-TC-1A only; the ERP simply records ISO 9712 certificates your technicians already hold. Training weeks can be entered in the availability calendar as training so dispatch does not book those people.

AERB licensing and radiography crews

Industrial radiography in India is regulated by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board. Radiography institutions need AERB licences, handled through its e-licensing system, with a Radiological Safety Officer designated, qualified radiographers operating the equipment, and personnel monitoring with dosimeter badges. Movement of sources between sites and their transport are controlled, and site radiography is often done at night to keep areas clear.

For the dispatcher, an RT job is a small package: qualified radiographers, the exposure device, survey meters and a vehicle suitable for carrying the source. Team Assignments books them together on one assignment and blocks the device or meters from being booked on another job for the same dates. It warns if any assigned instrument is out of calibration, based on the records in the Asset Management app.

The employee NDT profile records radiation safety training and radiation badge number for each technician. RSO and radiographer qualifications can be recorded in Certificates with expiry dates, so they trigger the same warnings as NDT certificates. The Fleet app records whether a vehicle can carry radioactive sources, with transport licence number and expiry, and assigns vehicles to projects with dates and mileage. The app supports your AERB compliance; it does not replace your licence conditions or your RSO's judgement.

IBR, PESO and witness-driven schedules

Much Indian NDT work is statutory. Boilers and boiler components fall under the Indian Boiler Regulations, with inspection by Inspecting Authorities or approved competent persons, and pressure vessels for compressed and liquefied gases fall under PESO's Static and Mobile Pressure Vessels (Unfired) Rules. On fabrication jobs, NDT often has to happen at stage inspections witnessed by a third party, and the witness date is fixed by someone else's diary.

That makes timing tight. A crew that arrives a day after the inspector has left has wasted a trip. With Team Assignments, the mobilisation and demobilisation dates can be set around the witness date, and the coordinator can see straight away which qualified technician is free that day and whether the right calibrated instrument is available. The Project app records codes, methods, scope and acceptance criteria for the job, so the crew goes in knowing what the inspector will expect.

For fabrication shops running NDT in their own yard alongside field jobs, the same calendar covers both, so the shop Level II is not double-booked between a vessel in the bay and a field job at a client's plant.

Gate passes, contract labour records and site documents

Indian plants, especially PSU refineries and power stations, have strict entry procedures. Gate passes need identity documents, police verification in many cases, medical fitness, safety induction and proof of statutory contract labour compliance such as provident fund and ESI registration. Passes can take days to process, and a technician without one waits outside while the client's clock runs.

The Project app holds safety induction and work permit fields for each NDT job. In Team Assignments, the mobilisation date can include pass processing time, and induction days can be booked on the calendar. The employee profile records medical fitness expiry. Per-technician tracking of gate passes, police verification and other documents is set up during implementation as part of the customization scope agreed with you, since every client's list is different.

Many sites, such as pipeline sections, compressor stations and power project sites, are far from a clean postal address. Recording site GPS coordinates on the assignment tells the crew exactly where to report.

DPDP Act and technician personal data

India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 puts obligations on businesses that process personal data. A scheduling system holds plenty of it: names, phone numbers, identity documents, certificates, medical fitness dates and, in the availability calendar, sick leave. As the employer, you decide what is collected and why.

The ERP gives you controls. Access rights are set by role during implementation, so technicians see their own jobs, supervisors see their crew, and only HR and QA see personal documents. Sickness can be recorded simply as sick in the scheduling calendar, with any detail kept in HR. Hosting, retention and who can export data are agreed with you. The system supports your compliance; it does not deliver it on its own. Keeping technician data in one controlled place is still far safer than copies of identity cards and certificates circulating in WhatsApp groups.

GST invoicing, reports and the rest of the ERP

Once crews are in field, hours go into Timesheets with work type (inspection, travel, standby, setup), method, site and equipment serial, a billable flag and a rate multiplier. Hours feed Invoicing, which splits labour, equipment and consumables. GST is configured for your company during implementation using standard Atlantis ERP tax features; we make no certification claims for any e-invoicing regime, and local requirements are part of the implementation scope. Travel allowances and site expenses go through Expenses for re-billing to the job.

In the field, the NDT Reports offline app lets technicians pull their assigned jobs and equipment and work without signal. For owners who want results in context, our companion product Digital Twin Reporting Software places inspection results on a 3D model of the asset and works alongside the ERP as a separate product.

For trainees building hands-on skill, Practical NDT offers immersive 3D practice in UT, PAUT, RT, MT, PT, VT, ET and TOFD on virtual welds, pipes, vessels and castings, opened from the eLearning portal. Monsoon weeks, when outdoor work slows, are a good time for it.

Setting it up in India

Atlantis NDT deploys and configures the ERP for you. Setup usually covers loading technicians with ISO 9712 and ASNT-based certificates, loading equipment by serial with calibration dates, connecting Time Off so festival and annual leave affect availability, setting up branches in different states, access rights, GST, and any extra checks you need, such as gate pass or offshore training tracking. Coordinators are trained on their own live jobs.

It is fully customizable, with pricing quote on request and kept affordable for Indian inspection companies of every size. Book a Team Assignments demo to see your own shutdown crew in it.

Frequently asked questions

Can it stop named technicians from a PSU bid being booked elsewhere?

Yes. Once assigned, a technician cannot be booked on another job or given overlapping leave or training for those dates without the clash being resolved.

Does it record ISO 9712 and ASNT certificates?

Yes, in the Certificates app, each as its own record with 90-day expiry warnings and daily email alerts. Atlantis NDT provides ASNT SNT-TC-1A-based training only; the ERP simply records ISO 9712 certificates your technicians hold.

Can it help with AERB requirements?

It records radiation safety training and badge numbers, books exposure devices by serial and flags source-capable vehicles in Fleet. It supports your AERB compliance but does not replace your licence conditions.

Does it handle GST?

GST is configured during implementation using standard Atlantis ERP tax features, with no certification claims for any e-invoicing regime.

Can it track gate passes?

Site induction and work permit fields are on each project. Per-technician gate pass tracking is configured during implementation.

What does it cost?

Quote on request, based on users, apps and customization. Affordable, accessible and fully customizable.

Plan your next shutdown in it

Tell us how many technicians you run, which methods, which states and which kinds of clients, and we will build a demo around a realistic shutdown fortnight. Request a quote or book a walkthrough.

Team Assignments by region

• Team Assignments global overview
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• Team Assignments in Canada
• Team Assignments in UK & Europe
• Team Assignments in Middle East

Works with

• 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.
• Maintenance: Preventive and corrective maintenance requests for instruments, vehicles and site equipment.
• 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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