Bureau Veritas, a global provider of testing, inspection and certification services, and Avitas Systems, a GE Venture, recently announced a strategic alliance for cross-industry, analytics-based inspections, including with drones.
The joint offering will initially focus on electric power and utility assets, notably renewable energy, and will progressively expand to other industrial assets.
According to the partners, the companies will offer enhanced end-to-end inspection services to customers at a global scale. Through the partnership, Bureau Veritas will advance its independent inspection services with Avitas Systems’ cloud-based platform, combining automated data collection and artificial intelligence techniques to bring industrial risk management to asset owners.
Avitas Systems will provide technologies – including sensors, drones and other robotics – paired with deep-learning-based data analytics to automatically recognize asset defects and deliver results via an online interface with user-accessible data and reporting. The technologies will prevent inspectors from working in high-risk and repetitive working conditions – improving overall safety and efficiency, according to the partners.
Bureau Veritas will provide its global experience in industrial assets, notably in visual inspection and non-destructive testing, to create a range of integrity assessment models and upgraded services using Avitas Systems’ technologies.
“Digital transformation is a unique opportunity for our customers and business sector to redefine the way asset integrity and performance are managed while improving the safety of inspectors on the field,” says Joerg Gmeinbauer, global market lead for power and utilities at Bureau Veritas. “This next generation of inspection services will revolutionize the way industries monitor their assets while enabling us to make our core mission of risk reduction and performance improvement a reality in the digitalized world.”
