Automating Industrial Inspections and NDT with Cloud-Based Software
As the NDT inspection market becomes an increasingly critical element of the global economy, the way industrial inspections companies deploy software needs to evolve. With a wide range of software available to the inspections and NDT markets, it is common for an organization to use disparate systems that don’t integrate, compromising productivity, customer service and competitive advantage. All too often, an industrial inspections service provider is unable to grow their business because they do not have the appropriate systems in place to manage their customers across the entire lifecycle.
Deploying industrial inspections software in the cloud simplifies and streamlines an organization’s automation efforts. As an organization evolves and more fully realizes its digital transformation strategy, businesses require technology to be quickly deployed and updated, and accessible from anywhere by multiple people within the organization. Systems deployed in the cloud have a high level of interoperability, with the ability to share business logic, data, files and workflows.
Flexibility and Uptime
Cloud software also provides a great deal of flexibility while ensuring optimal performance. Industrial inspections providers can more effectively manage their costs with cloud software. Other key advantages of cloud software include continuous uptime, always having the latest version of the software, no recurring maintenance costs, and a reduced dependency on IT resources.
Cloud software as a category is not new. Organizations have been using software in the cloud for years to handle systems like email, project management, and document storage. It is, however, newer to the industrial inspections and NDT markets. With as many different inspection types and customer requirements that an NDT service provider has to manage and deliver against, it works to the organization’s advantage to address these many needs through purpose-built cloud software.
NDT Software in the Cloud
An ideal cloud deployment encompasses all aspects of inspections operations — from handling customer inquiries and service requests to billing, invoicing and measuring customer satisfaction. There are three core capabilities that a cloud inspections platform should enable: request management; job management; and report management. Within each of these, there are additional capabilities that advanced cloud software can enable.
Request Management
- Service requests
- Cost management
- Proposal generation
Job Management
- Inspector scheduling
- Equipment management
- Asset management
- Inspector dispatch
- Inspection processes
- Inspection data capture
Report Management
- Report generation
- Invoice management
- Data management
- Predictive analytics
- Billing and Receivables
Deploying software in the cloud enables the inspections business to focus on what it does best: serve customers and conduct safe, reliable inspections and provide thorough, timely reports. Cloud software removes the need to manage computer systems internally; this is done by the software provider. Moreover, cloud-based software can be managed as an operational expense to the business, reducing risk and eliminating maintenance contracts.
Cloud-based software that manages the entire customer lifecycle is key for an industrial inspections service provider to maintain a competitive advantage and enable growth. For a demonstration of Floodlight Software, contact us today. Our cloud-based, end-to-end industrial inspections solution was designed to digitally transform NDT inspections businesses.