[ Insert your own title here ]
by Bernard McGrath, Inspection Validation Centre

I was making progress. I had made a conscious effort to desist and it was working. I hadn’t stopped completely but my lapses were limited to when my team was playing. Then I found that my progress with sport was negated by backward steps with the news. It could be an age thing, related to grumpy old man syndrome or connected to an observation that older people tend to just say it as they think it is. On the other hand, it could be hereditary. My dad did it on a regular basis and I have been told that two of my brothers are doing it. So much so that their children passed comment on it on Facebook! I’m referring, of course, to talking at the television.

Talking, and occasionally shouting, at the television or radio is a release of pent up frustration. I know I should be more at peace with myself and the world, that the sounds and pictures which are emitted by a box of electronics should not be able to produce a reaction, never mind a strong reaction! As I said at the beginning, I had been making progress, so I no longer rise to the bait of blatant cheating, obviously incorrect decisions, time wasting and inane commentator remarks. The exception being when it is against my team, which you have to admit is understandable. However, I find I am now unable to remain unperturbed by people making comments and statements on the news. I will not give specific examples because that will put focus on the examples themselves and detract from the underlying issue that I want to raise.

I didn’t know what to call this month’s column. Initially, I had thought of ‘Truth’, but it would be a bit presumptuous to think that I could claim to have knowledge of the truth. What I want to write about is not really about what is true, but more about ignoring or omitting to mention facts in order to make other facts look like the truth or the whole story. I thought about calling it ‘Spin’, but spin is deliberate exaggeration or even mis-information in order to convince people of a particular argument. ‘Spin’ also doesn’t convey my meaning because deliberate mis-information and exaggeration is not always present. So I’ll let you think of a title whilst I get on and try to explain the chink in my armour of placidity.

In the NDT world it can be summed up by ‘Probability of Detection’ or POD. Now, before you break the habit and send me emails on this subject, let me finish. I understand the need to quantify performance of NDT techniques for input into probabilistic assessments of components and for assessing their suitability for a particular job and comparison with other techniques. I am also well aware of the good work that has been done, both experimentally and theoretically, to derive various POD values and curves. My complaint is that the POD term is allowed to be used within the NDT industry to equally describe data collected from a documented and planned study and data collected from a few specimens containing spark eroded slots. No caveats or health warnings are required to be attached to POD curves or numbers. We use a commonly understood term, probability, in a way that does not match that understanding and we allow people outside the industry to jump unchecked to their own conclusions.

Whilst I am on a roll, another gripe in the same vein is the inconsistent acknowledgement that NDT is a special process. As with POD, it is the aerospace industry which has embraced this term and the requirements it brings. The rest of industry is left to pick and choose whether to apply it or not and gets away with it because of the fact that NDT is a special process! It is not as though it is new. A ‘Back to Basics’ paper in Insight in 1994 described the requirements and no doubt there are papers even further back.

Technical papers submitted to journals are subject to peer review, allowing comment and feedback before being accepted. The paper is then published for all to see and make their own judgements. I know that engineering institutions represent a broad church of views, opinions and commercial interests but there is a case for a peer review of trends and practices which are not otherwise subject to professional scrutiny. Once we have sorted out our industry then maybe we could do the same for the news and prevent ‘personalities’ from getting away with deliberate omissions.

I thank you for your support in reading this column throughout 2010, and wish you and your families a happy and peaceful Christmas.

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