Good day everybody.

Recently I had to witness a MPI and UT on a large gear. The NDT company had been around for a while and had a good reputation with the inspectors.

So, on the job one person was busy with the MPI on one side of the gear and the UT was done on the opposite side.

While discussing sensitivity settings with the technician of the UT on the fillet weld, I could hear the yoke making its distinctive noise in the background.

The UT guy seemed confident and was scanning along nicely, so I walked over to the MPI guy. We discussed acceptance criteria and he pointed out a few areas that he was not happy with. We discussed possible causes and remedies of these indications. I had a look at his overlap and yoke placement, I was impressed.

Back to the UT. As I walked around the gear I could see the UT guy scanning while typing something into his cell phone. I stood behind him for a few seconds to see if, perhaps this guy could multitask like a woman. Nope. He had massive “gaps” in his coverage. He wasn’t getting the overlap I would have liked to see.

When he noticed me watching him, he quickly put the phone down and continued scanning. He did not go back to the area he just scanned, nope he just continued. He then made some adjustment to the instrument. That warm and fuzzy feeling I was hoping for, was now gone.

I asked him about the probe’s beam spread angle and the width of the scanning beam. He was able to give me the exact numbers. He knew his UT.

I knew that explaining the seriousness of situation would be a waste of time. So I made him      re-calibrate and start the entire scan over again. He was mumbling while completing the scan under my direct supervision. I don’t think this counts as multitasking.

The definition of integrity: Doing the right thing even though nobody is watching.

Published with the kind permission of Hennie de Wet