The 13th Principle for Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is at the core of the current industrial revolution. The nondestructive evaluation (NDE) sector has started embracing it under the broad theme of NDE 4.0. It is changing the value proposition of inspection processes from “an undesirable quality check” to a “much-needed source of data, information, and knowledge,” from manufacturing to service life mainte- nance. The inspection community is at the stage where it has started exploring standards and preparing to create regu- lations. A precursor to such a disciplined or structured approach is a set of guiding principles that will enable proper devel- opment of technologies, products, and services, and enable infrastructure. This brief provides a structured model of 12 principles in three synergistic perspectives with a responsible foundation. They are designed to serve as a guide to meaningful develop- ment, deployment, and lever- aging of the next generation of inspection systems, as well as creating, capturing, and distributing value from the data they generate.