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Getting ready for fall inspections: Atlas tips for fast, effective, and affordable videoscope repairs

With summer coming to an end in a few weeks, it is time to make sure that your on-site inspection equipment and tools are in full working order for fall outages. However, videoscope repairs can be expensive and take a long time to perform, heavily impacting both budgets and timelines. This ‘article offers Atlas’ videoscope repair tips on how to select a provider that offer clients the quality expected from an OEM with the innovation and value of an independent service company.

Application story #1: Power products & services

Repair challenge: This company providing power products and services owns approximately 40 videoscope systems, primarily from Everest VIT (EVIT) / GE and Olympus. Many of their systems are aging, and spending capital on equipment was becoming more and more difficult. Videoscopes are heavily used to inspect power plant equipment which is extremely hard on the videoscopes over time. The customer has numerous field service teams which deploy all over the world, each with a videoscope system. Many inspection jobs are concurrent, or with very little time in between to allow for proper regular videoscope maintenance. In many cases, scopes come back broken, and the next inspection crew who has to use them for a job does not know they are broken until they receive them on site. The scopes have historically been sent to the OEM for repair who has typically taken up to three months to return them and have historically been charging from $7,000 to $9,000 per scope.

Atlas repair tip: Check that your repair provider offers a component-level approach to repairs that consists of only fixing the component or system that is broken. This strategy drastically reduces repair costs (averaging around $1,995 per videoscope) and allows for much quicker repairs, typically within two to three weeks.

Application story #2: Aviation

Repair challenge: This company in the aviation field was under increasing pressure to do more with less, trying to ensure quality work while reducing costs. They had been using a third-party repair company that did not have the processes in place, the ability to return scopes quickly, nor the capacity to work on the client’s wide variety of scopes in inventory. The customer was reluctant to use the OEM due to the high costs typically associated with such repairs, however they knew the OEM would perform quality work. Other small third-party operators could be used that were likely good at fiber optics, but not necessarily videoscopes, and would not have the customer service staff required to ensure timely deliveries, estimates, and approvals.

Atlas repair tip: A videoscope repair provider should offer clients the quality expected from an OEM at the affordable price of a focused independent service company. World-class customer service should be measured by expedient communication from first contact and RMA to evaluation and estimating, all the way to the final delivery of top-quality results. Highly experienced and trained technicians dealing with customers should be well versed in using small mechanical systems, optics, video, and state-of-the-art test and repair equipment, including laser welding.

Application story #3: Manufacturing

Repair challenge: This manufacturing plant had a number of Olympus videoscopes with LE lighting. Four of the eight LED lights had gone out on one of their scopes. The manufacturer quoted them $9,000 to carry out the repairs which essentially consisted of replacing the scope for a simple LED failure. However, the scope was essentially useless without the output from those lights.

Atlas repair tip: Ask your repair provider to be creative and think outside the box. The problem was turned over to Atlas’ R&D department that developed a cost-effective way to replace the LED lights within two weeks. The output of the scope was restored for under $2,500.