Thanks for joining us for Part Two of Organizing Routes and Reports for Large Inspections. If you missed Part One, it can be found here.

Some large organizations have multiple facilities in far-flung locations and these shared directories allow different maintenance teams to see what’s being fixed and how. This also allows teams at various locations to share images and reports. In this case, a standardized, uniform system of filing data is very important. For instance, you may want to include data such as company name, plant name or number, area, room, electrical service, and then equipment name or number in descending order for your file structure.

This organization becomes extremely important when dealing with large facilities. Reports for large facilities can run 80 to 100 pages or more. A good organizational system is a must for putting together large amounts of images and data. When conducting a survey to establish a baseline, images are taken of every piece of equipment in the facility to have a record of what it looks like when it’s operating normally. A baseline survey can result in thousands of images, all of which must be organized and categorized. An Excel spreadsheet works well for this purpose. All equipment images can be placed in the spreadsheet along with equipment type, location, inspection frequency, etc. Excel spreadsheets are also searchable, making finding a particular piece of equipment very simple. A hard copy of this spreadsheet is very handy to have with you during subsequent inspections. It allows you to quickly refer to the baseline of that piece of equipment making subtle changes easier to spot. Also, if your facility or organization uses asset management software, use this information to help you organize your equipment routes. Some of the legwork may have already been done for you. 

Thermographers should be familiar with their camera’s image processing software. Analyzing images can take much longer than necessary if you don’t know how to use the software. The type of inspection performed can determine what image markers and temperature measurements you use in your report. With electrical equipment, rise over adjacent phase is typically very useful, but obviously you wouldn’t use this same temperature measurement for mechanical equipment. In that case, you would try to find a similar piece of equipment that you could compare to.

Most modern thermal imagers take a digital image and a thermal image simultaneously. The problem is, the digital images produced by many thermal imagers are less than ideal. Many thermographers also bring along a separate, high resolution digital camera to take reference images of equipment. This can be very helpful when inspecting MCC rooms or other locations with many panels, cabinets and labels. These images can be used in your report if they help to illustrate the problem, but usually they’re used by the thermographer for reference when compiling the report. When inspecting areas with an abundance of equipment, it can be very helpful to have a visual reference later showing you what was where.

Large inspections can be intimidating, but if you take the time to prepare beforehand, you can make them manageable. Determine what makes the most sense as far as how you’re going to organize your inspection and use that same system to organize your report. Use clear, concise labelling to keep your file system easy to navigate. Make your report clean and organized so that the relevant data stands out. Breaking a large inspection down into pieces, such as by area or electrical service, and you’ll make your job much easier. Organization is the key to success for large inspections and large reports. Remember, a thermographer is only as good as his or her report!