‘Culture of inspecting industrial installations flawed’

13 January 2012 by Webredactie M&C

New technologies for the inspection of technical installations often spend decades gathering dust before the industry, largely as a result of major accidents, are as yet forced to implement them. The fault lies in the sector’s prevailing culture, according to Casper Wassink, who obtained his doctorate from TU Delft on this subject on Thursday, 12 January. His research ties in closely with the conclusions following the recent catastrophe at Chemie-Pack in Moerdijk.

Safety increasingly important

In his research, Wassink focussed on Non Destructive Testing (NDT). This form of testing involves taking measurements at refineries, reactors, pipelines and airplanes to determine with great accuracy how safe they are. The measurements are carried out on the basis of x-ray, for example, and ultrasonic echo technologies.
However, the findings of Wassink, who is also employed as Business Development Manager at Applus RTD, go beyond the field of Non Destructive Testing alone. Wassink: ‘Safety in the industry is becoming an increasingly important subject. Commercial interests in the short term are pitted against sustainable enterprise. I have shown that it’s not the technology or the rules and regulations that are currently at fault but the prevailing culture which is flawed and the compartmentalisation in the sector. The conclusions of my research correspond closely to those drawn following the recent calamity at Chemie-Pack in Moerdijk.’

Quarterly reports

‘The practice of dividing budgets into a number of separate stockpiles for inspection and maintenance and the ensuing poorly considered cost cutting has led to a culture in which NDT departments have developed an aversion to innovation and look no further than the next quarterly report’, says Wassink. ‘As a result, innovations that reduce safety risks but which only start to yield cost savings in the longer term are left on the shelf. To bring about a change in this undesirable situation requires the cooperation of the science, service provision and industrial sectors with the common aim of innovating more rapidly’, advises Wassink.

 

Stop trend

‘Monitoring must be financially independent to guarantee that the industry unconditionally observes the rules and regulations’, he continues. ‘At present, however, government policy is in fact leaning in the opposite direction. Supervisory positions in NDT were recently privatised. That means that supervisors are dependent on the income they receive from their clients. A stop has to be put to this inadvisable trend’, Wassink says with conviction.
The models and findings in his thesis can be generalised to other strongly regulated sectors such as healthcare and the financial world. In Wassink’s view these sectors experience similar problems with the independence of supervisory and inspection bodies.

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© 2012 TU Delft

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