A plant certification inspection report that once took 30 days to process is now available the same day as inspection, owing to new customized software developed by NPCA. With more than 370 precast plants in its certification program, NPCA operates the largest third-party inspection program in the precast industry.

The new software will streamline inspection reporting, enabling NPCA to manage the program more efficiently and keep costs low, according to Ty Gable, NPCA president. “We want to keep plant certification affordable for as many precast and prestressed producers as possible,” he affirms. “Our goal is to keep the cost low so the program will continue to grow. If we can certify more plants, we can offer more options and an overall higher level of quality assurance for specifiers and regulators.”

NPCA certification rates are $3,450 for precast plants and $12,000 for prestressed plants. The main benefit of the new software is that producers will know immediately whether they have passed the inspection. The software automates many formerly manual processes and eliminates subjectivity in the inspection grading. Instead of receiving a 70-page report 30 days after the inspection, the software enables the inspector to build the report as the inspection progresses. A preliminary report is printed at the end of the inspection and presented to plant officials, who can then ask questions of the auditing engineer or obtain clarification on any of the inspection items. “We’ve managed the plant certification process well for more than 20 years," Gable notes, "but this is an important investment in the future so we can continue to provide an unparalleled service to the most plants at the lowest price.”