Finspection is a Finnish inspection company founded in 2022 with a mission to improve pressure vessel safety and enhance the competitiveness of Finnish industry. The company’s vision is to be the most desired partner in pressure vessel inspections. Since its establishment, Finspection’s business has experienced significant growth, leading the company to expand its team, which now includes several experts.
Finspection provides inspection services to pressure vessel manufacturers, users, and maintenance companies, including periodic inspections, as well as inspection of repair and modification work. The company also conducts inspections of gas installations, various training programs, welder and welding method qualifications for client companies, and assessment of the compliance of various equipment components in accordance with pressure equipment directives. The service portfolio also includes ASME AIA inspection services and inspections complying with various international pressure vessel regulations.
“The project has progressed well considering the overall scope. None of us had prior experience with a software project, and it has been a very educational experience. The duration of the project has extended slightly, and the budget has been exceeded, but in part, the overall scope is broader than we initially planned. The field of pressure equipment inspection is highly specific and diverse in terms of various standards, directives, and legislation, and we eventually got a very functional app that serves our purposes exceptionally well.
In addition to all the requirements, we had a strong vision of the type of software we wanted, so we set high standards for the development. The Hurja team has listened to our needs throughout the project, and adjustments have been made on the fly. Due to its diversity, the project has also required strong participation and continuous communication from us. Smooth almost daily communication, along with sprints held every couple of weeks with planning and reviews, has maintained collaboration throughout the project.”
Timo Ojanperä, CEO, Finspection Oy
Technologies Used:
Henrik Asplund and Timo Ojanperä founded a new Finnish inspection company in 2022, focusing particularly on inspection services for pressure vessels. Finspection has a clear goal to act as a pioneer in the industry. The founders’ over ten years of experience in the field led them to the realization that developing their own application was necessary to achieve their set goals. There were no ready-made alternatives on the market, especially ones that met the company’s specific needs, making the decision to develop their own application practically unavoidable.
The project’s goal for Finspection was business digitalization, transitioning from traditional paper-based processes to a more efficient and contemporary inspection process. For this purpose, a digital system was created to enable quick information retrieval and updates, consolidating all documents in one place. Finspection App is co-funded by the European Union. During the funding application phase, the customer found the high-quality proposal material provided by Hurja valuable in preparing the application.
The new system aims to streamline and modernize work processes, especially those related to equipment inspection and qualification. Finspection’s goal is to have all information related to equipment and welders easily accessible from one place. Creating and maintaining traditional paper documents is labor-intensive and prone to errors, affecting efficiency and quality control. Inspired by this need, a completely new Finspection App was developed to process information more quickly and facilitate future inspections and qualifications.
Finspection App has been developed in collaboration with Finspection and Hurja since 2022 to address the need to streamline and modernize processes related to equipment inspection and qualification. The application is designed to be a user-friendly tool to enhance and support the daily operations and reporting of the inspection agency, both in the office and on-site.
Finspection’s clients have their own interface in Finspection App, making it easy and fast to manage inspections and qualifications. Multiple users can be added to the interface for the same client, and welder qualification and pressure equipment compliance assessment applications can be conveniently made using Finspection App. Management of welder and welding operator qualifications, as well as applications for extensions, can also be done electronically through the client’s interface. Setting reminders for expiration dates is also possible in the application.
The project followed the principles of agile software development. Agile methodology involves progressing the project iteratively with the customer, so the implementation was divided into smaller parts, or sprints. Each sprint included goal-setting, implementation, daily meetings, and reviews. Hurja developers were involved in the project from the sales phase, identifying customer needs and familiarizing themselves with key aspects of the industry. The project started with a Design Sprint workshop commonly used in service design and product development. Based on the Design Sprint, necessary preparations and plans for the system’s structure were made, laying a solid foundation for the digitalization of Finspection’s business processes.
Finspection App is built on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud platform. A prototype was created in the project to solidify the understanding of how the application should function before actual code changes were made. Figma was used for creating the prototype, especially in frontend and design planning, and this approach received positive feedback from the customer. The actual development work started with the creation of a staging environment, which included the first segment of the application, periodic inspections. The staging environment serves as a testing platform before the features of the application are deployed to the actual production environment. Efficient project management solutions, such as daily reviews and planning, and task management on the Jira platform, were used. These practices facilitated the smooth progress of the project and provided efficient tools for the entire team.
Thanks to close collaboration, the Hurja team was able to offer solutions to the customer based on genuine business understanding. In the final stages of the project, focus was on refining completed features and launching a new type of business. The versioning of the application developed by Hurja also proved to be effective and received recognition from the customer.
Development of the Finspection App continues after the project with new features, the most significant being the integration of artificial intelligence into the system using Google Document AI technology. This will enable efficient text recognition in physical forms, further easing the digitalization and storage of information for periodic inspections. Hurja is also responsible for the maintenance of the implemented service.
Finspection gained a competitive advantage with a solution that enhances efficiency for their mobile work, mainly conducted at customer locations. The implementation of Finspection App significantly streamlines inspection and certification processes, boosting business performance. The application offers fast and efficient reporting, promotes mobility and flexibility, and emphasizes customer-centricity. Finspection App provides security with two-factor authentication and protection of PDF files. It also enables precise and error-free information management, positively impacting decision-making and business quality. Finspection App is not just a tool for improving existing processes; it enhances Finspection’s capabilities for future challenges.
Through real-time reporting in the application, Finspection ensures seamless information flow during inspections. This enables the delivery of certificates to the customer immediately after a successful inspection. The quick reporting in Finspection App ensures that Finspection fulfills its service promise in welder and welding operator qualification as follows: qualification certificates are delivered to the customer on the next working day after the test results are obtained, and no qualification certificate fee is charged if the service promise is not met.
Real-time data transfer and immediate provision of certificates and qualifications to the customer significantly reduce waiting times and enable faster decision-making, reporting, and documentation. The desktop and mobile versions of the application support mobile work, allowing inspection personnel to report from anywhere. This increases flexibility and improves inspection performance in field conditions, supporting broader business digitalization as inspection processes shift from traditional paper methods to electronic solutions.
Through the application, Finspection can also offer its clients their own interface, where they can manage inspections and qualifications effortlessly. This increases customer involvement and enables better collaboration. The application allows setting reminders for qualification expirations and extensions, helping the customer stay up-to-date and ensuring that all qualifications are valid. All certificates can be generated in the app and delivered to the customer’s interface or email. Certificates are electronically signed, and their authenticity can be verified through QR codes. Thus, Finspection App ensures the creation of accurate and error-free reports. Digital information management reduces human errors and increases the reliability of reports.
Finspection welcomes everyone to explore Finspection and the application at the Machine Fair at Tampere Exhibition and Sports Centre on March 19-21, 2024, booth A1039.
“Especially in welding qualifications, Finspection App is a really fast and fantastic tool. The qualification areas included in welding standards are incorporated into the app, and creating certificates and qualifications based on essential variables is really easy, fast, and reliable. We can be sure of the correctness of the qualification area of the certificates.”
– Timo Ojanperä, CEO, Finspection Oy
Together, these benefits form a strong foundation for improving our customer’s daily tasks and increasing business competitiveness.
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