NDT Inspection Management ERP in East Hartford — Certification, Calibration and Work Orders in One System

NDT inspection management software for East Hartford aerospace suppliers

Short answer: an NDT shop in East Hartford needs software that ties every penetrant, eddy current, ultrasonic and radiographic report to a certified technician, a calibrated instrument and an approved procedure revision, and can prove all three the day a customer's auditor asks. The Atlantis ERP solution does that in one system, configured around your written practice, your customers' report formats and the way work actually moves through your shop. Affordable, accessible, fully customizable, with a quote on request.

The Hartford-area supply base is unusual. Pratt & Whitney has had its headquarters and a principal test and manufacturing site in East Hartford for a century, on a campus of close to 1,000 acres, and a long tail of machine shops, heat treaters, platers, coaters and NDT houses grew up around it along the Connecticut River valley. Most of those NDT houses are small: a handful of Level IIs, one Level III who also runs quality, a penetrant line, an eddy current bench, and perhaps a film or computed radiography room. They do not need a sprawling generic ERP. They need an NDT ERP that knows what a Level II PT certificate is, what a penetrant line procedure written to ASTM E1417 looks like, and why a customer bounces a report with the wrong procedure revision on it.

This section goes deeper than the overview above. It covers how the system holds aerospace-style qualifications, procedure control for audit, instrument calibration, reporting in customer formats, quoting and invoicing for piece-part work, and what the first month looks like for a small Connecticut NDT company.

Technician certification tracking software that holds NAS 410 and SNT-TC-1A in one register

Short answer: every certificate a technician holds sits in one register with scheme, level, method, certifying body, and issue, expiry and renewal dates, and the system works out on its own whether each one is active, expiring soon, expired or revoked. The Expiring Soon and Expired lists are there without anyone building a report.

Connecticut shops rarely live under a single scheme. The same Level II may be qualified to NAS 410 for flight hardware, to SNT-TC-1A for industrial and power-generation work, and hold an ISO 9712 or PCN certificate from an earlier employer overseas. The register records SNT-TC-1A, CP-189, ISO 9712, PCN and CSWIP directly, and anything else, NAS 410 included, under the other-scheme option with its own certificate template. Each template carries the validity period in months, whether a vision test and an examination are required, and the minimum on-the-job and training hours. The rules in your written practice live in the system, not in one person's memory.

Behind each certificate sits the evidence an auditor pulls: OJT hours, training hours, the examination sheet with general, specific and practical scores against a passing score (70 percent by default, adjustable per template), exam files and other attachments. Vision tests are their own records, with near vision at Jaeger J1 or J2, far vision, colour perception, contrast, the examiner, the clinic, the certificate file and the expiry date.

A daily check raises warning tasks 90 days before any certificate or vision test runs out, and daily email alerts go to whoever you choose, with your own look-ahead period and resend interval. If a technician books hours on a timesheet while a certificate is not valid, the timesheet warns. The employee record carries an NDT profile too: highest level, methods certified, radiation safety training, radiation badge number and medical fitness expiry. More detail is on the Certificates app page.

Procedure control that answers the auditor's revision question

Short answer: procedures sit in a register with document number, revision, method, scope, material, applicable standard and acceptance criteria, and move from draft to submitted, reviewed, approved and published. Approved revisions are locked, and every revision keeps a full snapshot, so you can show exactly what was in force on the day a part went through the line.

The hardest question in an aerospace special-process audit is rarely about the technician. It is about the document: which revision of the penetrant procedure was in use on the date on this report, who approved it, and what changed between that revision and the current one. On paper, that means a binder of superseded copies and hope. In the procedure register, each revision is a stored snapshot with prepared-by, reviewed-by and approved-by names and dates. A rejected draft carries the reason it was rejected, which is the kind of trail auditors like to see.

The register covers the methods an East Hartford shop actually runs, including UT, RT, MT, PT, VT, ET, TOFD, PAUT, leak testing, acoustic emission, hardness, PMI, computed and digital radiography. Approvers get email notifications and reminders for anything waiting on them, so a new revision does not sit in someone's inbox while the line keeps running the old one. For a first draft of a new technique or procedure, there is an AI-assisted drafting option that falls back to a built-in template. It gives your Level III a starting structure. It does not replace their review and approval, and nothing is published until they approve it. See the Procedures app.

NDT reporting software for penetrant, eddy current, ultrasonic and radiography work

Short answer: the system has 17 report types, each with its own numbering sequence, and each carries the fields that method needs. A report moves from draft to in progress, review, approved and sent, with inspector, reviewer and approver signatures captured along the way.

For a Hartford-area shop, the method-specific fields matter. Penetrant reports capture the PT method and developer. Magnetic particle reports capture technique and particle type. Ultrasonic reports carry a probe calibration table. Radiography reports carry source, technique, IQI type and placement, and computed radiography has its own report type. Eddy current, PAUT with focal laws, TOFD, hardness, PMI and UT thickness are all there too. Weld and job lines record defect type and orientation, and every report ends in one of three results: acceptable, not acceptable, or acceptable with remarks.

Aerospace customers often insist on their own format. Company templates are versioned and can be Excel, Word, PDF or HTML, with your logo, header and footer. Excel templates are filled automatically by mapping report fields to cells, so a customer's own spreadsheet form comes out completed without anyone retyping a single value. Each report also records the work order, request, contract and drawing numbers plus procedure and standard references, which is what lets you find it again two years later when a part comes back.

For on-site work, the offline field app installs from the browser, keeps drafts and photos on the device with no signal, and syncs later. It has a method picker, photo capture, on-screen signature and PDF preview. More on NDT Reports and the companion Digital Twin Reporting Software.

Calibration management software for flaw detectors, eddy current instruments and reference standards

Short answer: every instrument and probe is tracked by serial number with its calibration frequency and current status, and each calibration record holds the provider, certificate number, standard, range, uncertainty, accredited-lab flag, pass, fail or conditional result, and next due date.

A calibration certificate register sits alongside the equipment records, holding the lab's accreditation number, a valid, expiring or expired status, the PDF of the certificate and expiry alerts. Purchasing supports this too: vendors can be typed as OEM, dealer or calibration lab, with an accredited-lab flag, accreditation number and accreditation expiry, and purchase order lines can be linked to the exact serial number being sent out. When the eddy current instrument comes back from the lab, the record closes against the same serial it left under.

Instrument history does not stop at calibration. A maintenance log records preventive and corrective work, repairs, cleaning, firmware updates and probe replacements, with condition before and after. An issue and return workflow, with supervisor and manager approval, records the condition of a kit when it leaves the store and when it comes back. Reservations prevent two jobs claiming the same instrument, and every movement in or out is recorded.

Penetrant lines eat consumables. Penetrant, emulsifier, developer, couplant, PPE and stationery can be tracked with reorder levels, a low-stock flag and a movement ledger, so the line does not stop because the last drum of developer went unnoticed. On the dispatch side, assigning an instrument that is out of calibration to a job raises a warning. See Asset Management.

Crew dispatch and scheduling software for shop and field work

Short answer: every job runs as a team assignment that moves from planned to dispatched, in field, submitted and closed. The system blocks a technician or an instrument serial number from being booked to two jobs at once, and keeps an availability calendar that shows who is assigned, on leave, on training, sick or unavailable.

Most East Hartford NDT houses do two kinds of work. Shop work arrives as parts in boxes, gets processed on the line and ships back with paperwork. Field work sends people out to power stations, industrial plants, bridges and boiler houses around the state. The same small crew often covers both, and the scheduling spreadsheet is where things go wrong: a Level II booked for a plant outage on the same day the penetrant line needs them, or the only phased array kit promised to two customers.

Team assignments hold the site GPS coordinates and mobilisation and demobilisation dates. The technician view shows each person's status, current assignment, utilisation percentage and next available date. Time Off requests feed the availability calendar directly, so approved leave shows up as unavailability when someone tries to schedule over it. Calendar, kanban and list views give the office different ways to look at the week.

If your field work involves radiography sources, the Fleet app records whether each vehicle can carry radioactive sources, its transport licence number and expiry, and which project and driver it is assigned to, with dates and mileage. See Team Assignments and Fleet.

NDT quoting and invoicing software for piece-part and day-rate work

Short answer: quotes carry job type, site, project dates and applicable codes, and NDT services are set up as products flagged with method and category. A branded quotation PDF goes to the customer, who can accept and sign online, and the accepted quote converts to a sales order.

Connecticut NDT work is priced two ways: by the part or lot for shop work, and by the day or hour for field crews. Invoices handle both. The header holds the NDT project, job or PO number, site, invoice type and industry sector, with separate subtotals for labour, equipment and consumables. Lines can carry the cost centre, method, equipment serial number, technician, rate type and days or hours. That detail matters when a customer's accounts payable team rejects an invoice because it does not match their PO structure.

Timesheets record work type (inspection, travel, standby or setup), method, site, client, equipment serial and a billable flag with a rate multiplier for overtime or weekend work. Approved hours feed billing, so field time is not re-keyed from paper sheets on a Friday afternoon. A financial dashboard shows revenue, cost of sales, gross margin, operating expenses, EBITDA, outstanding invoices, bills and expenses over a 12-month view. Payments, reminders and taxes are set up for Connecticut during implementation. If your accountant wants to stay in QuickBooks or NetSuite, the ERP's open REST API connects to them, with the scope agreed during implementation. See Quotations and Invoicing, or ask us to show quote-to-invoice on your own job types.

Spreadsheets vs generic ERP vs Atlantis ERP for a Connecticut NDT company

Short answer: spreadsheets are free but prove nothing on their own. A generic ERP handles money well but has no idea what a Level II or an IQI is. An NDT ERP carries both the business side and the inspection evidence. The table below compares the three on the things an East Hartford shop is actually audited on.

Best ERP for small NDT companies in the Hartford area: what to test in a demo

Short answer: do not judge an NDT ERP from slides. Bring your own data to the demo and make the system do the jobs that currently cost you time. A vendor who cannot do that live has told you what you need to know.

Here is the demo script we suggest to Connecticut shops, whether they are looking at us or anyone else:

1. Load one real technician with three certificates under two schemes and an expiring vision test. Ask to see the status change and the warning task appear.
2. Upload your biggest customer's Excel report form and ask for it to be filled from a report without retyping.
3. Open a procedure, publish a new revision, and ask to see the snapshot of the previous revision and who approved it.
4. Book the same technician to two overlapping jobs. The second booking should be refused.
5. Assign an instrument whose calibration has expired. You should get a warning.
6. Post two days of field timesheets with an overtime multiplier and turn them into an invoice with method and technician on the lines.
7. Put a phone in airplane mode, write a report with photos and a signature, then reconnect and watch it sync.

A five-person shop does not need every app on day one. Most start with certificates, procedures, equipment and reports, then add quoting, invoicing and dispatch once the evidence side is under control. Book a demo built around your own technicians and customer forms.

What implementation looks like for an East Hartford NDT house

Short answer: implementation is mostly about your data, not the software. The work is loading your certificate matrix, procedures, instrument list and customer templates cleanly, then setting up the people, access rights and approvals the way your quality system already works.

From your side, you need two people with time: your Level III, who owns the written practice and procedures, and whoever runs the office, who owns customers, quotes and invoices. We ask for the certificate matrix in whatever form it lives in today, a list of every instrument and probe by serial number with the last calibration certificate, the current procedure set with revision numbers, and the three or four report formats customers insist on. The certificate templates are built from your written practice, so validity periods, vision and exam requirements and minimum hours match what an auditor will read in that document.

User access rights are set by role during implementation. Many Hartford-area shops handle technical data that customers treat as controlled, and deciding who can see which procedures, drawings and reports is part of the setup conversation. The software gives you the access controls. Your export-control and customer data-handling obligations remain your own programme's responsibility, and we configure to what that programme says.

Integrations are scoped at the same time. If a customer wants reports pushed into their system, or your accountant wants invoices in QuickBooks, the open REST API is the route, and the scope is agreed before any work starts.

Beyond aerospace: power, submarine and boiler work across Connecticut

Short answer: the same system handles non-aerospace work without a separate setup, because report types, certificate schemes and procedures are per method and per customer, not per industry.

Connecticut's inspection market reaches well past the engine and helicopter programmes. General Dynamics Electric Boat builds submarines in Groton. Dominion's Millstone nuclear station in Waterford runs refuelling outages that pull in inspection crews, and nuclear work often calls for CP-189 qualification, which the certificate register records as a built-in scheme. Industrial and power-plant boiler work is steady too: Connecticut's Department of Administrative Services runs the state boiler inspection programme, with power boilers on an internal and external inspection cycle, which drives visual and UT thickness work for the contractors who support owners and their inspectors.

For that kind of field work, UT thickness reports record readings by direction, and visual, MT and PT reports cover the rest. Hardness, PMI and ferrite report types cover material verification jobs at fabricators. Where a vessel or component is surveyed for a classification society, marine mode adds a vessel cover page and merges the class certificate, the inspector's Level II certificate and the calibration certificate into the report PDF.

Plant owners who want to see inspection results in context can pair the ERP with Atlantis Digital Twins, which maps indications and damage onto a 3D model and trends thickness and remaining life over time. Connecticut shops that also want third-party inspection support can look at our inspection services.

Training records, eLearning and the Practical NDT simulator

Short answer: training hours recorded in the eLearning portal support the training-hour evidence behind each certificate, and the Practical NDT 3D simulator gives trainees hands-on practice before they touch customer parts.

The eLearning app provides a course portal with Level I, II and III sections, video lessons streamed from OneDrive or SharePoint with download protection, quizzes (questions can be imported from Word files), and certificates of completion. Administrators create learner accounts and grant or revoke access, and learners get their own dashboard. Atlantis offers NDT training based on ASNT SNT-TC-1A through our training programmes. If your technicians qualify under NAS 410 or another scheme through their employer or another provider, the ERP records those certificates and hours. It does not replace that qualification route.

The Practical NDT simulator is a 3D practice platform linked from the Practical NDT section of the course portal. For a shop that brings on trainees each year, the combination of recorded OJT hours, course completions and exam sheets in one place makes the qualification file much easier to build and much easier to defend. Ask for a walkthrough of the certificate, eLearning and exam records together.

Frequently asked questions

Can the ERP record NAS 410 certifications when NAS 410 is not a built-in scheme?

Yes. NAS 410 certificates are recorded under the other-scheme option with their own certificate template, which sets the validity period in months, whether a vision test and examination are required, and the minimum OJT and training hours. Status, expiry warnings and alerts then work exactly as they do for SNT-TC-1A certificates.

Does it stop a technician with an expired certificate from working?

It flags them rather than silently letting them through. Certificate status is computed automatically, warning tasks appear 90 days before expiry, email alerts go to the people you choose, and timesheets warn if a technician's certificate is not valid. If your written practice calls for a harder stop at dispatch, that rule is configured during implementation.

Can we keep using our customers' own report forms?

Yes. Company templates can be Excel, Word, PDF or HTML and are versioned. Excel templates are filled automatically by mapping report fields to cells, so the customer's form comes out complete without retyping.

Is the Atlantis ERP too big for a five-person NDT shop?

No. Small shops usually start with certificates, procedures, equipment and reports, then add quoting, invoicing and dispatch later. You are not forced to switch everything on at once, and the system runs in a browser and on a phone.

Will it connect to QuickBooks, SAP or our customer's system?

Yes, through the open REST API. It integrates with SAP, Maximo, NetSuite, QuickBooks or any system that accepts API connections, and the scope of each integration is agreed during implementation.

Why is there no price on this page?

Because every implementation is shaped to the shop: number of users, which apps, how many customer templates and which integrations. The positioning is affordable, accessible and fully customizable, and you get a written quote on request after a short conversation.

Does Atlantis provide NAS 410 or other aerospace qualification training?

No. Atlantis offers NDT training based on ASNT SNT-TC-1A only. The ERP records certificates from any scheme, including NAS 410, ISO 9712, PCN and CSWIP, but it does not make Atlantis a provider of those qualifications.