Affordable NDT ERP in Carson — Fully Customizable, All Business Apps Included

NDT ERP software for inspection companies working in Carson

The right NDT ERP for a Carson inspection company is one that can run two very different kinds of work out of the same office: live refinery turnaround and on-stream work at Marathon's Los Angeles Refinery, and preservation, layup and pre-demolition verification at the Phillips 66 site, which stopped fuel production in the fourth quarter of 2025. The Atlantis ERP solution is set up for exactly that split, with separate job types, quotation templates and cost centres per line of work, and a single record of technicians, instruments and reports underneath.

Most small NDT companies in the South Bay run on a stack that grew one problem at a time: a quoting spreadsheet, a whiteboard or shared calendar for crew dispatch, a folder of certificate PDFs, a calibration log kept by whoever owns the van, and an accounting package that only finds out about a job when someone types the invoice. That works until a client auditor asks which UT instrument was on a given report, whether the technician's Level II was current on that date, and which procedure revision they worked to. The Atlantis ERP answers those three questions from the job record itself, because the report, the technician, the instrument serial number and the procedure reference are captured together when the work is done, not reconstructed afterwards.

This section goes deeper than the overview above. It walks through how each part of the system maps to real Carson work, what is built in, what gets configured during implementation, and where the companion products fit. If you would rather see it on your own data, ask for a demo scoped to your Carson work.

Carson now has two refinery lifecycles, and your software has to price them differently

Phillips 66 has said it began idling its Los Angeles refinery facilities in Carson and Wilmington in late 2025, that full idling of all units would run over the following months, and that it intends to keep operating permits in place and hold units in a safe, clean and well-maintained state while it pursues redevelopment approvals for both properties. For an inspection contractor that is not a lost customer, it is a different customer. Layup condition checks, verification that vessels and tanks are properly isolated and cleaned, structural condition surveys ahead of deconstruction, and baseline documentation for redevelopment are all real scopes, but they are billed, staffed and reported differently from a turnaround.

Inside the Atlantis ERP you model that with project records. Each project carries an NDT job type, site, client PO, contract, the methods and codes in scope, acceptance criteria, assigned equipment and technicians, job status, and the safety induction and work permit fields a refinery gate expects. You can set up one job type for turnaround and on-stream work and another for preservation and decommissioning support, each with its own quotation layout and cost centre. The financial dashboard then shows revenue, cost of sales and gross margin for each stream, so you can see whether the preservation work is actually paying for itself instead of guessing at year end.

• Turnaround and on-stream work: short mobilisation windows, large crews, many methods on one job, heavy overtime.
• Preservation and layup work: smaller crews on longer, lower-intensity schedules, with visual and thickness scopes and a lot of photographic evidence.
• Pre-demolition verification: structural condition and isolation checks tied to a redevelopment timeline rather than a refining calendar.

Technician certification tracking software for Carson crews

Technician certification tracking in the Atlantis ERP is built in, not a spreadsheet bolted on. Every certification is a record with its scheme (SNT-TC-1A, CP-189, ISO 9712, PCN, CSWIP or other), level from trainee through Level III, method, certifying body, issue, expiry and renewal dates, industry sector, OJT hours, training hours, exam result and attachments. Status is computed automatically as active, expiring soon (inside 90 days), expired or revoked, and there are dedicated Expiring Soon and Expired menus so nobody has to filter a list by hand.

Vision tests are tracked the same way: near vision (Jaeger J1 or J2), far vision, colour perception and contrast, with examiner, clinic, certificate file and expiry. Examination sheets record general, specific and practical scores against a passing score that defaults to 70 percent, and certificate templates per scheme hold the validity period in months, whether a vision test or exam is required, and minimum OJT and training hours. That matters when you run a written practice under SNT-TC-1A and a client's auditor wants to see that your Level II MT tech actually met your own documented hours.

The employee NDT profile carries the technician flag, highest level, methods certified, radiation safety training, radiation badge number and medical fitness expiry. Daily checks create warning tasks 90 days before a certificate or vision test runs out, and configurable email alerts go to whoever you choose, with look-ahead days and resend intervals you set. The detail that saves you on a refinery job: timesheets warn when a technician's certificate is not valid, so an expired cert gets caught when hours are logged, not three weeks later when the client's QA rejects the report package.

Calibration management software for UT, PAUT and RT equipment

Calibration management is handled in the Asset Management app, which tracks every instrument, probe and source-related item by serial number. Each record holds equipment type, assigned person, condition, asset tag, firmware, accessories, lifecycle state (new, active, in calibration, in repair, rented out, retired, disposed), calibration frequency and status. Rental rates can be recorded, which is useful for the Carson companies that rent out flaw detectors and PAUT sets between their own jobs.

Calibration records carry the provider, certificate number, standard, range, uncertainty, whether the lab is accredited, the result (pass, fail or conditional) and the next due date. A separate calibration certificate register stores the lab accreditation number, valid, expiring or expired status, the PDF, and expiry alerts. When a dispatcher assigns an instrument that is out of calibration to a job, the system warns them before the crew leaves the yard.

Equipment moves through an issue and return workflow with supervisor and manager approval, and the condition is recorded at issue and at return. Reservations prevent two jobs claiming the same serial number, and every inbound and outbound movement is logged. The maintenance log covers preventive, corrective, repair, cleaning, firmware update and probe replacement entries with condition before and after. Consumables such as couplant, penetrant and developer, magnetic particle media, PPE and stationery have reorder levels and a low-stock flag, which stops the classic turnaround failure of a crew arriving on night shift with no developer.

Crew dispatch and scheduling software for refinery turnarounds

Crew dispatch in the Atlantis ERP runs through Team Assignments. Each job moves from planned to dispatched to in field to submitted to closed, with the site's GPS coordinates and mobilisation and demobilisation dates on the record. You work in calendar, kanban or list views, whichever your dispatcher prefers.

The technician availability calendar holds assigned, leave, training, sick and unavailable entries, and overlaps are blocked. Double-booking of a technician or of an equipment serial number is blocked too. For each person you can see status, current assignment, utilisation percentage and next available date, which is exactly what you need at 6 p.m. when a Carson unit supervisor calls for two more UT techs on the morning shift. Time Off feeds the same availability calendar, so approved leave shows up in dispatch without anyone re-entering it.

California adds a payroll wrinkle that out-of-state contractors often underestimate: overtime is triggered by hours in a workday, not just hours in a week. Timesheets in the Atlantis ERP record work type (inspection, travel, standby, setup), method, billable flag, rate multiplier, site, client and equipment serial, with approval. The rate multiplier is how you carry overtime and premium time from the timesheet into billing, and the exact payroll rules are configured during implementation to match your California obligations.

NDT reporting software built into the ERP

The Atlantis ERP includes NDT reporting as a built-in app, and the same engine sits behind the standalone Digital Twin Reporting Software. It covers 17 report types, each with its own numbering sequence: UT, RT, MT, PT, VT, ECT, IRIS, PAUT, MFL, TOFD, PWHT, PMI, hardness, UT thickness, ferrite, holiday/coating and computed radiography.

The data is method-specific rather than a generic form with a comments box. UT reports carry a probe calibration table. RT reports carry source, technique, IQI type and placement. MT captures technique and particle type, PT captures method and developer, PAUT carries focal laws, MFL carries scan mode and item lines, and UT thickness captures readings by direction. Weld and job lines record defect type and orientation, and every report closes with an overall result of acceptable, not acceptable, or acceptable with remarks. Work order, request, WPS, contract, drawing numbers, procedure and standard references are all captured on the report.

Reports move from draft to in progress to review to approved to sent, with inspector, reviewer and approver signatures and a field for a third-party or authorized inspector's name and signature. Company templates are versioned in Excel, Word, PDF or HTML with your logo, header and footer, and Excel templates fill automatically by mapping fields to cells, so a Carson client that insists on its own spreadsheet format still gets it without anyone retyping. The offline field app installs as a web app, works without signal inside a tank or on a congested pipe rack, stores drafts and photos locally, captures an on-screen signature, previews the PDF and syncs when the device is back in range.

Marine inspection reports for the port side of the South Bay

Carson sits a few miles from the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach, and plenty of South Bay NDT companies take vessel, barge and marine terminal work between refinery jobs. The reporting app has a marine mode for that. It adds a vessel cover page and photo, the inspection location and dates, and on PDF output it merges the classification-society certificate from a built-in library (DNV, ABS, Lloyd's Register, BV, RINA, IRS, ClassNK), the inspector's Level II certificate and the calibration certificate for the instrument used. Inspection photos are laid out in a 2-up grid.

The practical gain is that a surveyor receives one PDF that already contains the evidence they would otherwise email you to ask for. For a small company doing a handful of marine jobs a month, that is the difference between invoicing on completion and chasing paperwork for a week.

Procedure control that a Level III can defend at audit

Written procedures are where many small companies are weakest, because the approved revision lives in someone's inbox. The Procedures app keeps a register with document number, revision, method (UT, RT, MT, PT, VT, ET, TOFD, PAUT, LT, AE, hardness, PMI, CR, DR and more), scope, material, applicable standard such as ASME Section V, acceptance criteria, and either the body text or an uploaded file.

Each procedure runs through draft, submitted, reviewed, approved and published, with rejected and archived states and a recorded reason for any rejection. Prepared-by, reviewed-by and approved-by are stored with dates, approved revisions are locked, and a snapshot of every revision is kept, so you can show exactly what the procedure said on the day a report was written. Approvers get email notifications and reminders for pending approvals. There is also an AI-assisted first draft that falls back to a built-in template when needed; it saves typing, but a Level III still reviews and approves every procedure before it is used.

NDT quoting and invoicing software that follows the job

Quotations carry the job type, site, project dates and applicable codes, a global discount, and NDT service products flagged with method and category. The PDF is branded to your company, and clients can accept and sign online, after which the quote converts to a sales order. That suits refinery procurement desks that want a clean, signed scope before a PO number is issued.

Invoices carry the NDT project, job or PO number, site, invoice type and industry sector, with subtotals for labour, equipment and consumables. Lines hold cost centre, method, equipment serial, technician, rate type and days or hours, and billable timesheet hours with their rate multiplier feed straight into billing. Payments, reminders and taxes are configured per country and state during implementation. Field expenses and per diems logged in Expenses can be re-billed to the job, and the financial dashboard gives a 12-month view of revenue, cost of sales, gross margin, operating expenses, EBITDA, outstanding invoices, bills and expenses. Quote on request; tell us your headcount and methods and we will scope it.

Spreadsheets vs generic ERP vs the Atlantis ERP for a Carson NDT company

Integrations, dashboards and the rest of the stack

The Atlantis ERP has an open REST API and integrates with SAP, Maximo, NetSuite, QuickBooks or any system that accepts API connections, with each integration scoped during implementation. A separate REST API serves field devices: jobs assigned to the technician, equipment issued to them, report submission and sync.

Dashboards give you NDT KPIs such as equipment calibration due and overdue, certificates expiring and expired, and issued equipment that is overdue for return, alongside the financial dashboard. Company certifications, such as your ISO registration and other accreditations, sit in the same system with their own alert days. Fleet records note whether a vehicle can carry radioactive sources, the transport licence number and expiry, and assignment to project and driver with dates and mileage, which is useful for any Carson RT contractor running source trucks between refinery gates.

On the sales side, the CRM records service line, lead source, NDT service type, industry sector, site country and estimated technicians and days, with an NDT lead score from 0 to 100. Leads import from CSV, business cards can be photographed and turned into leads, and AI marketing tools draft campaign emails and drip sequences that can run on your own server. For asset owners who want inspection data in 3D, Atlantis Digital Twins maps indications and damage onto the model and trends thickness and remaining life, and technicians can practise on the Practical NDT 3D simulator. Browse every module on the ERP apps page.

How a Carson implementation usually runs

Implementation starts with the part of your operation that hurts most, which for most South Bay contractors is certification and calibration evidence, because that is what a refinery pre-qualification audit hits first. We load your technicians, certificates, vision tests and instrument register, set your alert recipients, and connect Team Assignments so dispatch starts checking both automatically.

Reporting comes next: your existing report layouts become versioned templates, Excel formats that clients insist on are mapped field to cell, and the offline field app goes onto technicians' phones and tablets. Quotations, invoicing, cost centres and the job types for turnaround and preservation work follow, and any integration to accounting or a client system is scoped and built last, once the data it depends on is clean. Anoop Rayavarapu, ASNT NDT Level III and founder of Atlantis NDT, reviews the NDT-specific configuration so it reflects how inspection work actually runs. To start, book a scoping call.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best NDT software for a small inspection company in Carson?

The best choice for a small Carson company is one system that holds certifications, calibration, dispatch, reports and invoicing together, rather than five tools. The Atlantis ERP solution does that, is affordable and fully customizable, and is sized to your team with a quote on request.

Can the ERP separate turnaround work from preservation and decommissioning work?

Yes. You set up separate job types, quotation templates and cost centres, and the financial dashboard reports revenue and margin for each, so you can see which line is profitable.

Does it stop an out-of-calibration instrument going to a refinery job?

It warns the dispatcher when assigned equipment is out of calibration, blocks double-booking of the same serial number, and the calibration register shows valid, expiring and expired certificates with alerts.

Can it handle California daily overtime on timesheets?

Timesheets carry work type, billable flag and a rate multiplier that feeds billing, and your specific California payroll rules are configured during implementation.

Does the NDT reporting software work inside a tank with no signal?

Yes. The field app is an installable web app that stores drafts and photos locally, captures signatures, previews the PDF and syncs when the device reconnects.

Does Atlantis offer NDT training for Carson technicians?

Atlantis offers ASNT SNT-TC-1A-based NDT training, and the ERP's eLearning portal can host Level I, II and III course content. The ERP can record other certificates your technicians hold, such as CP-189, ISO 9712, PCN or CSWIP.

Can it connect to our accounting system or a client's maintenance system?

Yes. The open REST API integrates with QuickBooks, NetSuite, SAP, Maximo or any system that accepts API connections, scoped during implementation.