The face that we rarely remember
by Bernard McGrath, Inspection Validation Centre

I leant on the rail and looked out across the sea. Having just left the harbour there were many ships around and about, sailing both towards and away from the port. The rain had stopped and the sky had cleared, leaving the sea a deep blue reflection of the sky. It was peaceful just watching: watching the other ships; watching the coastline change and fade away into the distance; watching the waves and eddies constantly changing as they rushed alongside the ship’s hull. I was woken from my reverie by the wind slamming the door to the deck behind me. An elderly man appeared at my side.
 
“Is that ship bigger than ours?” he asked. The ship in question was a smaller, sister ship of the one we were on. It had left the port before us and we were now overtaking it. I passed this information to the man just as the door slammed again and his wife appeared at his elbow. Before he departed with his wife, the elderly man took one last look around at the seascape before us: the sister ship and the myriad of freighters, tankers and containerships. “It is busy out there tonight,” was his parting shot. As they walked off down the deck I heard his wife retort: “Oh Elmo, of course it is busy – it is the cruising season!” I looked at the nearest coaster, ploughing up and down on the swell, its deck covered in piping and its hull and superstructure streaked with rust: that is one cruise you don’t see advertised in the Sunday papers!

You had to be there! It is an example of poor communication, in this instance in an innocuous situation with only a humorous consequence. I have written about communication a number of times before and I will write about it again because it is one of the three key components of any human endeavour. However, this time, I want to concentrate on interfaces. My interface with the elderly man worked sufficiently, but the interface with the wife was subject to some sort of disconnect!
 
Interface: a point where two things meet and interact. Have you ever thought about interfaces? I don’t suppose you do very often and yet if you take time to do so you will soon realise that they are the source of most of the troubles in the world. There is the personal interface with individuals. Computer interfaces – how many times have you wanted to smash the computer because you can’t get a new device to work properly? Road interfaces – road and motorway junctions are always a source of potential danger. For ships, one of the most dangerous parts of the voyage is the entry and exit from ports – the interface between sea and land. Borders or interfaces between countries are causes of disputes. Have you every tried to interface with a utility over a bill?

In the workplace, the interfaces between teams, departments and disciplines, who each have their own priorities and objectives, are all potential sources of problems and errors. I’m sure you have encountered such incidents. On site, poorly defined interfaces between operating units can lead to equipment falling between the gaps and no-one taking responsibility for connecting pipes etc.
 
As NDT professionals, we should be more aware of the difficulties of interfaces than most. In ultrasonics, mismatches at the interfaces between the probe and couplant, couplant and component or component and environment all produce unwanted and distracting echoes. Similarly in electronics, mismatches in impedances at interfaces between components cause signal distortion.

At the business level, there is the interface between the client and the NDT vendor: the lack of information from the client was identified in the PANI projects as the biggest risk to a reliable inspection. The operator has to manage a number of interfaces: with his own company for the information and equipment; with the procedure; with the site preparation and safety teams; and with the client’s engineer, who wants the results as quickly as possible. All these interfaces impact on the performance of the inspection.
 
So, when undertaking risk assessments, when looking to minimise errors or when looking to achieve a high performance, focus on the faces we all tend to ignore – the interfaces – because that is where most problems arise.

Please note that the views expressed in this column are the author’s own personal ramblings for the purpose of encouraging discussion within the NDT Newspaper. They do not represent the views of the IVC, Serco Assurance or the HSE who funded the PANI projects.

Letters can be mailed to The Editor, NDT News, Newton Building, St George’s Avenue, Northampton NN2 6JB. Fax: 01604 89 3861; Email: ndtnews@bindt.org or email Bernard McGrath direct at Bernard.McGrath@sercoassurance.com