Perspectives: The Unicorn Problem

Digital technology has transformed nearly every industry. Computers are no longer just for games and data management; they’ve become part of everything we touch and use every day. Modern inspection systems are no exception. They’ve become dramatically more capable and more technologically advanced. What hasn’t kept pace are our assumptions about the people, organizational structure, and long-term investment required to use them effectively.

I’ve spent the last decade diving deep into one small niche of the nondestructive testing (NDT) world. I specialize in digital radiography (DR) and computed tomography (CT). I’ve worked as a trainer, field service tech, imaging lab manager, and now as a consulting Level 3. Along the way, I’ve worked with aerospace, oil and gas, defense, research, litigation, and dozens of other industry segments. Through all those experiences, one thing has remained constant: there is a massive gap in understanding what these systems are capable of and what it actually takes to implement a successful DR or CT program.

Usually, it starts with a legitimate business problem. Throughput needs to improve. Product designs are changing, or old equipment has reached the end of its service life. Eventually, somebody in management decides the answer is digital radiography. To be clear, they are usually correct. Modern DR and CT systems are incredible. The level of automation, customization, and imaging capability available today is something the industry could barely have imagined a couple of decades ago. During the sales process, manufacturers demonstrate turnkey systems that are fast, efficient, and surprisingly user-friendly. The systems really can save enormous amounts of time and money.

What often gets missed is that the organizational load has shifted. With film radiography and computed radiography (CR), image acquisition was frequently the limiting factor. With DR, acquisition becomes fast—sometimes astonishingly fast. The bottleneck moves downstream to image interpretation. Additionally, workflow management, system integration, procedure development, data handling, archiving, and administration suddenly become the new challenges. Companies solve one operational problem and accidentally create three new ones.

Vendors are not lying when they say these systems are easy to use. They can be. But getting to the “easy” stage takes time, expertise, targeted education, and organizational effort. That is where the pipeline problem starts to show itself. There simply are not many experienced Level 3s in digital radiography. The pipeline is thin, and in some places completely empty.

One thing I have never quite understood is why this surprises so many organizations. Companies often have a well-defined process for justifying a million-dollar capital purchase, complete with return on investment (ROI) calculations, depreciation schedules, and executive approval. Yet asking for the time and budget required to develop the people who will actually make that equipment successful can feel like pulling teeth. The machine is treated as the investment; the people are treated as an expense. In reality, they are two halves of the same investment.

Part of the reason is cultural. For decades, society embraced a college-for-all mindset. According to the US Census Bureau, the percentage of American adults with bachelor’s degrees grew from roughly 8% in 1960 to nearly 40% today. Beginning in the 1980s and accelerating through the 1990s and 2000s, many states instituted accountability systems that tracked college entrance exam scores and college enrollment. Consequently, many high schools reduced vocational programs and increasingly measured success by college placement. Skilled trades such as NDT lost prestige. In the corporate-ladder sense, it has become difficult to justify investment in long-term professional development for people on the shop floor. In my experience, the corporate career development path is strongly tilted in favor of developing managers rather than technical experts. Technical experts are viewed as people who arrive for onboarding with engineering degrees. In short, the economy rewards degrees. But this has produced unintended consequences for industries like ours that depend on highly experienced technical practitioners.

The result is an industry full of incredibly knowledgeable radiographers with decades of practical experience, but far fewer people who also possess the computer systems, networking, software, automation, and integration skills modern DR systems increasingly require. I frequently find myself explaining to management that the machine really can do everything they saw in the demonstration, but their existing film or CR organization cannot simply convert overnight. CR may technically be a nonfilm method, but operationally it has far more in common with film than with DR.

There are major differences between film or CR and DR. Inspection geometry changes. There’s usually a shift from vertical to horizontal shooting, which makes fixturing and tooling completely different. Geometric magnification becomes routine. How image quality is measured and how the system and techniques are qualified are completely different. Unlike film and CR systems, digital detectors present multiple adjustable parameters that directly influence image quality, throughput, and repeatability. Layer on top of that automated motion systems, robotics, detector controls, reconstruction software, networking, storage, and integration with manufacturing systems, and the learning curve becomes very steep. The only things that are truly standardized are a handful of software tools and common image file formats. Almost everything else varies by manufacturer and evolves at the pace of modern software.

That leaves companies in an awkward position. For years the X-ray department was viewed as the place for technical specialists who did not necessarily need engineering degrees. Then a million-dollar DR or CT system arrives, sold as easy to use, and management cannot understand why they suddenly need applications engineers, programmers, automation specialists, IT support, and senior Level 3 oversight working together. The issue is not that the technology failed, but that modern DR programs require a hybrid skill set that historically lived in separate career paths.

The industry needs unicorns: people who understand radiographic technique, image quality, fixture design, codes and specifications, detector performance, and inspection workflow. Many companies also want that same person to be comfortable troubleshooting networks, managing software, integrating automation, manipulating large datasets, and occasionally doing what amounts to light coding on a delicate and expensive piece of precision equipment.

Corporate hiring practices often make the problem worse. Many organizations require specific degrees before employees can move into technical leadership. Ironically, those filters often screen out the very people who have developed the practical experience needed to become these unicorns. There is no well-defined educational pipeline for DR and CT Level 3s. Many of the best digital radiographers I know have associate degrees, trade-school certificates, degrees in unrelated fields, or no degree at all.

Perhaps the biggest irony is that there isn’t really a school for the person our industry is trying to hire. Thirty years ago, this career path barely existed in its current form. Universities produce excellent engineers and scientists. Community colleges and trade schools produce excellent NDT technicians. But there is no such thing as a bachelor’s degree in industrial digital radiography engineering. There is no accredited pathway intentionally designed to produce someone who understands radiation physics, image quality, software integration, automation, codes and specifications, and the practical realities of operating an industrial inspection program. We keep wondering why we cannot find unicorns, but we have never built a place to raise them.

Then, just to make things interesting, companies also want this unicorn to write procedures, manage audits, oversee training, handle documentation, maintain certifications, and perhaps serve as the Radiation Safety Officer. At some point we have to recognize that this is not one job. In many organizations, it is at least two jobs, and sometimes three.

These professionals are rarely hired fully formed. They are built over years through mentorship, operational experience, formal training, and employers willing to invest in people. That investment is easy to underestimate because it does not arrive in a crate with the equipment. It is measured in years of mentoring, failed experiments, troubleshooting sessions, vendor training, standards committees, and accumulated experience solving problems that no manual anticipated.

There is another challenge as the technology matures: the black-box effect. As DR, and especially CT, become more sophisticated, it becomes easier to produce impressive images without understanding the science behind them. My experience has been that the deeper someone’s understanding of the underlying physics, mathematics, and image formation, the better they become at solving difficult inspection problems. Operating software and understanding software are not the same thing. As one Level 3 recently said to me, “the one who is great with the CT software has no idea where the images came from.”

DR and CT borrow a lot of concepts from medical imaging, mathematics, computer science, and automation. That vocabulary can intimidate experienced radiographers and mislead engineers into believing the inspection side is straightforward. Neither assumption is true. The future belongs to professionals who can bridge those worlds.

For most organizations, the real solution is probably one of two things: teach engineers radiography, or teach radiographers the computer engineering and systems integration skills modern DR platforms demand. Either approach requires companies to tear down the traditional barrier between the degree people and the shop people. More importantly, it requires management to recognize that building hybrid professionals is a long-term strategy rather than a hiring exercise.

Because that is where the unicorns live.

The hard truth is that DR programs do not succeed simply because a company bought advanced hardware. They succeed because somebody invested the time, personnel, and institutional effort required to support that hardware long after the installation team leaves. The organizations that thrive in the next generation of industrial radiography will not necessarily be the ones with the newest equipment. They will be the ones that deliberately build the people capable of extracting everything that equipment has to offer. Vendors can install hardware, provide applications support, and train operators, but only the customer can build the culture, procedures, technical leadership, and institutional knowledge that turn capable equipment into a capable inspection program.

System integrators build exceptional equipment. Companies build exceptional inspection programs. One can be purchased; the other has to be cultivated. Until organizations treat talent development as part of the capital investment instead of something that happens afterward, they’ll continue searching for unicorns that they should have been raising all along.

About the Author

Rick Price is the principal consultant at Radiography Industry Consulting LLC, which specializes in industrial digital radiography and computed tomography for the aerospace and defense sectors. An ASNT NDT Level 3 in radiographic testing and IRRSP-certified radiation safety professional, he has spent more than a decade in nondestructive testing, specializing in advanced digital inspection systems, technical training, and helping companies bridge the gap between sophisticated imaging technology and the people needed to use it successfully.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of ASNT. Articles in this series have not been peer-reviewed and are published for informational and professional development purposes only. Accuracy of technical content is the responsibility of the author.

About Perspectives

Perspectives is a digital series from Materials Evaluation featuring first-person insights from NDT practitioners, engineers, and specialists across the field. Articles in this series reflect the views of the author and have not been peer-reviewed. To submit a piece for consideration, contact the editorial team at jross@asnt.org.