Coast to Coast NDE Services is one of the premier Pipeline integrity companies in North America with a corporate mandate to improve the quality of data captured in the field and reporting of this data to its clients. With rapid growth, and a corporate focus on the quality of data provided to clients – Coast to Coast NDE Services engaged Grey Iron Media to assist in the development of tools to facilitate the in data collection and reporting.

Ideas

Grey Iron staff worked closely with Coast to Coast NDE Management to fully understand the business and propose a solution that was leaps and bounds ahead of the industry standard. Coast NDE and Grey Iron were able to bring the following ideas to table:

1. Simplicity of data input – with high staff turn-over in the industry and the need to train people quickly the simplicity of the data input process is essential
2. “Eyes and Ears in the field” – the team quickly adopted this phrase to clearly articulate the goal of the solution. The engineer in Head Office needs to see what the field technicians are seeing and the software needs to convey this capability.
3. Visual Output – sitting with direct clients we quickly learned that the amount of data required a better way to display. Client engineers would literally have to flip through 50 pages of data to make their assessment. Converting the data to a visual format would greatly simplify the process of reviewing dig data
4. Integration – data is useless if sitting on a shelf collecting dust. Interfaces to corporate Risk Models and GIS systems were planned into the software to assist organizations to take field captured data and process it into their corporate Systems

Grey Iron and Coast NDE have developed and deployed the Coast Field Connect software. The software has been through field testing for the past year with over 50 mobile crews working from the deepest tips of the southern United States to the Great White North in Canada.

The software has been successfully used by some of the largest Pipeline Systems in North America with a large number of Pipeline companies acquiring the software for their own in-house use and a larger number utilizing Coast to Coast NDE Services as a result of the quality results provided in part because of the software.

Coast NDE and Grey Iron Media’s success on the Coast Field Connect Software has resulted in several on going initiatives to develop additional software (SCC Sizing and a GIS interface for a Soils Based Risk Model) specifically targeted for the Energy Transportation sector.