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

NDT software for inspection companies working across Michigan

Short answer: a Michigan NDT company needs one system that follows its technicians from a Downriver refinery to a Monroe County outage to a fabrication shop in Grand Rapids, and keeps certificates, calibrated equipment, reports and invoices tied together the whole way. The Atlantis ERP solution is an NDT ERP built for that kind of spread-out field work, configured to your written practice and your customers. Affordable, accessible, fully customizable, with a quote on request.

Michigan is a big state to inspect. The Detroit and Downriver corridor carries refining, integrated steel and heavy manufacturing. Monroe County and the southwest corner host nuclear generation. Midland and the Saginaw Bay area are home to Dow's chemical operations. West Michigan runs on fabrication, furniture, food and automotive suppliers, and the Upper Peninsula brings mining, paper and long drives. An inspection contractor based in any one of those regions usually ends up working in several of them, and often across the border in Ontario as well.

The overview above covers the market in general terms. This section is about the operational side: how crews are dispatched across that distance, how nuclear and cross-border qualifications are recorded, how boiler and pressure work is documented, and how field hours turn into invoices without anyone re-keying timesheets on a Monday morning.

Inspection management software for statewide field crews

Short answer: each job is a team assignment with site GPS coordinates, mobilisation and demobilisation dates, and a dispatch status that runs from planned to dispatched, in field, submitted and closed. The system blocks double-booking of technicians and of equipment serial numbers, so a crew cannot be promised to Monroe and Muskegon on the same day.

When your work is spread over several hundred miles, the scheduling problem is mostly about travel and availability. The technician availability calendar shows who is assigned, on leave, on training, sick or unavailable, and overlapping entries are blocked. Approved Time Off flows into that calendar, so a scheduler sees the deer-season leave before they book the job, not after. For each technician, the system shows status, current assignment, utilisation percentage and next available date, which is what an operations manager needs when a customer calls on Thursday wanting a Level II on Monday.

The Fleet app records each vehicle's purpose, whether it can carry radioactive sources, its transport licence number and expiry, and its assignment to a project and driver with dates and mileage. For radiography contractors, that means the truck, the source and the licensed crew are planned together. Expenses covers field costs and per diems and lets them be re-billed to the job they belong to. Calendar, kanban and list views give dispatchers, managers and accounts their own way to see the same week. See Team Assignments, Fleet and Expenses.

Nuclear outage work in Michigan: CP-189 and SNT-TC-1A records side by side

Short answer: the certificate register records ASNT CP-189 as a built-in scheme alongside SNT-TC-1A, ISO 9712, PCN and CSWIP, so a technician qualified for both nuclear and conventional work carries both sets of certificates on one record with their own expiry dates and status.

Michigan has three nuclear plant sites that drive outage demand: DTE's Fermi 2 in Monroe County, Indiana Michigan Power's D.C. Cook plant in Bridgman, and Holtec's Palisades plant in Covert, which moved from decommissioning back to operating status for regulatory purposes in August 2025 as part of the first effort to restart a shut-down US nuclear plant. Outage work is where certification gaps get expensive. A technician who arrives with an expired vision test or a lapsed method certificate does not get badged in, and the crew is short on day one.

For each technician, the register holds scheme, level (trainee, I, II or III), method, certifying body, industry sector, issue, expiry and renewal dates, OJT hours, training hours, whether the exam was passed and any attachments. Vision tests are recorded with near vision at Jaeger J1 or J2, far vision, colour perception and contrast, with the examiner, clinic, certificate file and expiry. A daily check raises warning tasks 90 days before any certificate or vision test expires, which is usually enough time to renew before an outage window. The employee NDT profile adds radiation safety training, radiation badge number and medical fitness expiry, the fields nuclear site access coordinators ask for first. See Certificates.

Cross-border crews: Michigan, Ontario and the Canadian certification question

Short answer: technicians who work on both sides of the border can hold US employer-based certificates and Canadian ISO 9712 certificates on the same record. Taxes for each country are set up during implementation, so a Windsor or Sarnia job invoices correctly alongside Detroit work.

Michigan and Ontario share an industrial economy. The Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor tunnel have carried that traffic for decades, the Blue Water Bridge links Port Huron with Sarnia and its petrochemical cluster, and the Gordie Howe International Bridge opened to traffic between Detroit and Windsor on July 27, 2026. For inspection contractors, the practical difference across the border is qualification. Canadian work is generally done by personnel certified under the national ISO 9712-based programme administered through Natural Resources Canada, rather than under an employer's SNT-TC-1A written practice.

In the ERP, those certificates sit under the ISO 9712 scheme with their own certifying body, level, method and dates, next to the same technician's SNT-TC-1A certificates. Certificate templates per scheme carry their own validity periods and vision, exam and hours requirements, so each scheme follows its own rules. A dispatcher planning a Sarnia shutdown can see at a glance which technicians hold the Canadian certificate for the method needed, and which ones are about to expire.

Pressure equipment work in Ontario is overseen by TSSA, and your Canadian customers will have their own documentation expectations. Report templates can be set up per customer, so the Ontario client gets their format and the Michigan client gets theirs. Talk to us about running Michigan and Ontario work on one system.

Boiler and pressure work under the Michigan Boiler Code

Short answer: the ERP does not replace the state's inspection regime, and it does not calculate inspection intervals or corrosion rates. What it does is keep the evidence your technicians produce for owners and their authorised inspectors, such as UT thickness readings, visual, MT and PT reports, tidy, signed and retrievable.

The Boiler Division of Michigan's Bureau of Construction Codes, part of the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, administers the Michigan Boiler Code, covering installation and repair inspections and in-service inspections, with a certificate of operation required for boilers. Contractors who support owners around those inspections produce a steady stream of thickness surveys, weld inspections and repair NDT.

UT thickness reports record readings by direction. Weld and job lines carry defect type and orientation. Each report records work order, request, WPS, contract and drawing numbers, plus procedure and standard references. There are separate fields for the third-party inspector or authorised inspector's name and signature, which is how a repair package gets signed off by the right person. The workflow runs draft, in progress, review, approved and sent, with inspector, reviewer and approver signatures.

Your own company-level credentials matter too. The company certifications register holds ISO certificates and other accreditations the company holds, each with alert days, so a lapse in a company-level credential is caught as early as a technician's. See NDT Reports. Owners who want inspection services rather than software can look at Atlantis inspection services.

Automotive, steel and fabrication: the method mix Michigan shops actually run

Short answer: the ERP has 17 report types, each with its own numbering, including UT, RT, MT, PT, VT, eddy current, IRIS, PAUT, MFL, TOFD, PWHT, PMI, hardness, UT thickness, ferrite, holiday/coating and computed radiography. That covers most of what a Michigan fabrication or plant-services contractor bills for.

Automotive tooling, stamping and assembly plants generate weld inspection, hardness testing and PMI work on fixtures, dies and structural steel. Integrated steelmaking and refining along the Detroit River generate PAUT and TOFD on pressure welds, IRIS on heat-exchanger tubes, MFL on tank floors, PWHT records on repairs and holiday testing on coated surfaces. Each method has fields that matter: probe calibration tables for UT, focal laws for PAUT, scan mode and item lines for MFL, source, technique and IQI details for RT, technique and particle type for MT, method and developer for PT.

Many Michigan customers send their own report forms. Versioned company templates (Excel, Word, PDF or HTML) carry your logo, header and footer, and Excel templates are filled automatically by mapping fields to cells. That means a Tier 1 supplier's quality form or a refinery's inspection sheet is produced straight from the report data, and the PDF for each method is generated from the same record.

In the field, the offline app installs from a browser and keeps working without signal. It stores drafts and photos on the device, captures signatures on screen, and syncs when the tablet gets back into coverage. That matters inside tank bottoms, deep in plant structures and on the long stretches of northern Michigan where coverage is thin. See also the companion Digital Twin Reporting Software.

Calibration management software for a spread-out equipment pool

Short answer: every flaw detector, probe, thickness gauge, yoke and piece of source-related equipment is tracked by serial number, with calibration frequency and status, assignment, condition, firmware and accessories. Calibration records include provider, certificate number, standard, range, uncertainty, accredited-lab flag, result and next due date.

When equipment is spread across trucks and job sites around the state, the real problem is knowing where each item is and whether it is fit to use. The issue and return workflow, with supervisor and manager approval, records who has each kit and its condition when it left and when it came back. Reservations prevent the same instrument being promised to two crews. Lifecycle states (new, active, in calibration, in repair, rented out, retired, disposed) show why a serial number is not on the shelf. Rental rates can be recorded against items you hire out.

The calibration certificate register holds each lab's accreditation number, the certificate PDF and a valid, expiring or expired status, with expiry alerts. Purchasing can flag vendors as OEM, dealer or calibration lab, with the lab's accreditation number and expiry, and link purchase order lines to the serial number being sent. A maintenance log records preventive, corrective, repair, cleaning, firmware and probe-replacement work with condition before and after. When someone assigns an out-of-calibration instrument to a team assignment, the system warns them. Dashboards show calibration due and overdue, certificates expiring and expired, and issued equipment overdue for return. See Asset Management and Dashboards.

NDT quoting and invoicing software for shutdowns, outages and day-rate crews

Short answer: quotes carry job type, site, project dates and applicable codes, with NDT services set up as products flagged by method and category. Accepted quotes convert to sales orders, and approved timesheet hours flow into invoices with method, technician, equipment serial and rate type on each line.

Shutdown and outage work in Michigan means long shifts, standby time, travel and per diems, all of which customers scrutinise. Timesheets record work type (inspection, travel, standby or setup), method, site, client and equipment serial, with a billable flag and a rate multiplier for overtime or night shift, plus approval. Field expenses and per diems come in through Expenses and can be re-billed to the job. Invoices carry the NDT project, job or PO number, site, invoice type and industry sector, with separate subtotals for labour, equipment and consumables, so a refinery's accounts team sees the breakdown they asked for in the purchase order.

A financial dashboard shows revenue, cost of sales, gross margin, operating expenses, EBITDA, outstanding invoices, bills and expenses over 12 months. If you want to keep your books in QuickBooks, NetSuite or SAP, the open REST API connects to them, and the integration scope is agreed during implementation. Nothing about prices appears on this page, because every quote is shaped to your crew size and scope. Ask for a quote based on your technicians, methods and sites.

Three ways Michigan NDT contractors run operations today

Short answer: most Michigan contractors run on spreadsheets, on an accounting or generic ERP package with spreadsheets bolted on, or on an NDT ERP. The difference shows up in audits, in outage mobilisation and at month end.

Best NDT ERP for small and mid-size Michigan contractors: questions worth asking

Short answer: the best NDT software for a Michigan contractor is the one that fixes your worst week, whether that is outage mobilisation, audit preparation or month-end invoicing. Ask every vendor to show those weeks, with your own data.

• Can it show me every Level II UT technician whose certificate or vision test expires before our spring outage?
• Can a dispatcher see utilisation and next available date across all crews without asking the field supervisors?
• Can it hold my Canadian ISO 9712 certificates alongside SNT-TC-1A and CP-189?
• Will it warn when an out-of-calibration instrument is assigned to a job?
• Can I produce my biggest customer's report form without retyping?
• Can travel, standby and per diems reach the invoice without anyone re-keying them?
• Does the field app work with no signal, and does it sync without losing photos?

For smaller companies, it is normal to start with certificates, equipment and reports, then add dispatch and invoicing in a second phase. The system is the same; you switch apps on as you are ready. The CRM can also help growth: leads carry service line, NDT service type, industry sector, site country and estimated technicians and days, with a 0 to 100 lead score and drip email sequences by service line. See CRM.

How implementation runs for a Michigan inspection contractor

Short answer: we build the configuration from your written practice, your equipment list and your customers' report formats, load your historic records, and set up the approvals and access rights your quality system already describes.

The data work is the bulk of it. Certificate matrices come in all shapes, from spreadsheets to paper files in a Level III's office, and each certificate needs its scheme, level, method, body and dates. Equipment lists need serial numbers and the last calibration certificate for each item. Procedures go into the register with their current revision, and each can then move through draft, submitted, reviewed, approved and published from that point on, with locked revisions and a snapshot of each one. Customer report templates are built and mapped.

Integrations are scoped early. If a plant owner wants reports sent into their maintenance system, or your finance team keeps QuickBooks, the REST API connection is defined up front. Plant owners who want to see inspection data in 3D can add Atlantis Digital Twins, which maps indications onto the asset and trends thickness and remaining life. For training records, the eLearning portal holds Level I, II and III course sections, quizzes and completion certificates, and Atlantis offers NDT training based on SNT-TC-1A through our training programmes, with hands-on practice on the Practical NDT simulator. Book a call to scope your implementation.

Frequently asked questions

Can the ERP hold CP-189 nuclear certifications as well as SNT-TC-1A?

Yes. CP-189 is a built-in scheme in the certificate register, next to SNT-TC-1A, ISO 9712, PCN and CSWIP. Each certificate has its own level, method, dates and status, and a technician can hold certificates under several schemes at once.

Does it work for crews that cross into Ontario?

Yes. Canadian ISO 9712 certificates are recorded under the ISO 9712 scheme on the same technician record, report templates can be set up per customer, and taxes for each country are configured during implementation.

Does the ERP calculate boiler or vessel inspection intervals?

No. It does not calculate inspection intervals, corrosion rates or remaining life. It records the NDT your technicians perform, such as UT thickness readings by direction, and keeps signed, approved reports retrievable for owners and their inspectors.

Will the field app work in plants and remote areas with no signal?

Yes. The offline field app stores drafts and photos on the device, captures on-screen signatures and previews the PDF, and syncs when a connection returns.

Can we connect it to our accounting system?

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

How much does it cost?

Pricing is not published. The Atlantis ERP is affordable, accessible and fully customizable, and you get a written quote on request based on your users, apps, templates and integrations.