Inspectioneering Journal Turns 25

In early 1995, our family was enjoying dinner at our friends’ home in Fairfield, California. As my friend Mark (a pharmacologist by trade) and I were in the kitchen getting drinks, I noticed that his fax machine was sluggishly printing a newsletter about the latest and greatest in pharmacology news.  Out of curiosity, I asked him how much of the information in that newsletter Mark and his team of researchers already knew. He estimated about 80%, but remarked that the 20% he did not know made the newsletter well worth the price.

In the 15 years prior to this, I had regularly witnessed the misapplication of advanced NDE and AIM-related software platforms in our own field. Some of these technologies and software products had a lot of promise, but because of a lack of understanding, they had been misused, often leaving a bad impression on the buyers (e.g., owner-operators trying to get better at predicting the time to next inspection or the end of life of their equipment).

Sometimes the misuse was ridiculous. For example, when looking for HIC/SOHIC damage (when it was just getting “sexy” in the late 1980s early 90s), automated UT equipment was often mobilized, which cost companies a lot of money.  Unfortunately, the flyer the service provider was using to promote their inspection services in finding wet H2S damage had micrographs and macrographs of high temperature hydrogen attack.  Believe it or not...