The need for foresight
by Bernard McGrath, Inspection Validation Centre

So, Christmas is over for another year and a new year has begun. Every year, with the encouragement of the media, we spend the Christmas holidays following the same secular rituals. We review the events of the past year. We look at what went well and choose our sports personality, book, film, song etc of the year. We review news, arts and sports events month by month. And, once we have exhausted the reviews, the media turns its gaze through 180 degrees and predicts what is to happen in the coming year. Which artists will produce the hit songs, which authors will have literary success, and which shares will be good buys and which will be bad.

These two cerebral activities, of reliving past events and projecting forward to what may happen, share some characteristics and activate similar parts of the brain and are referred to as mental time travel. However, despite the similarities, one is easy to do whilst the other is a lot more difficult to do successfully. When dealing with facts, hindsight is the simple process of matching the facts to the symptoms and realising has now become obvious. Difficulties only arise when a number of people were involved in the event being recalled and, due to different subjective perceptions of the event, they are unable to agree on what actually were the facts. Foresight is much more difficult. Based on historic and current information, we have to choose the most likely from a whole number of possible scenarios which, in turn, may or may not be influenced by unknown future events.
 
So, when we hear that noise in the car, it is often difficult to identify which of the possible causes it is due to. Once the fault has been diagnosed, and hopefully repaired, it is easy to see how the fault related to the particular characteristics of the noise. Similarly, we only need to look at the number of books about the economic crisis to see how many people are wise after the event. Where were they when we needed them to stand up and stop it all happening?

Amazingly, although we often get it wrong, the human race has progressed because of its ability to predict what may happen, to plan for the future and to shape the future outcomes. People did warn about the consequences of the risky financial activities, just as people warned about the dotcom bubble. This illustrates another difficulty of foresight. If the majority of people are happy and think they are benefiting from the current situation then they will refuse to listen to those they consider as prophets of doom and killjoys, no matter how obvious the predictions. This, in turn, makes it harder for people to raise concerns.
 
It is easy to see the similarities between applying NDT and foresight. NDT is about looking at present information to predict and hence prevent what may happen in the future. Also, the news an NDT operator has to present is not always well received. So, with your enhanced powers of foresight, what do you predict for the future of NDT?

On the face of it, once some external factors are sorted, the future looks rosy. Nuclear new build, renewable energy structures, carbon capture schemes, new infrastructure projects and proposed high-speed rail links will all have a demand for NDT services. Unfortunately, there is a potential downside as highlighted by Mike Farley in a recent paper he gave in Berlin. Using international nuclear new build as an example, he described how the demands of different supply chain companies applying different codes, meeting the requirements of different regulators and combined with other regulations, such as PED, could generate a multiplicity of personnel training and certification requirements which would have to be met by individual NDT technicians. This would be both economically inefficient and demotivating for operators. Mike and his colleagues at ICNDT are working to address this issue.

The NDT industry needs to apply foresight and plan for the future. My worry is that if the demand for NDT services does take off and outstrips supply, who will stand up and speak out against commercial interests that try to cut corners on NDT quality and personnel? Let me know what worries you may have for the future of NDT. In the meantime – Happy New Year!

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