Remote FAT Now Online

Australian Switchgear Engineering firm NOJA Power today announce the commissioning of their innovative online remote Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT) capability. Achieved through installation of a suite of camera’s in NOJA Power’s test laboratory, quality evaluation engineers and auditors can conduct routine FAT inspections on their switchgear at NOJA Power remotely, providing significant cost savings and improving delivery times.

With equipment in service in over 90 countries worldwide, NOJA Power hosts inspectors for FAT almost every week of the year. In the prevailing travel conditions, local FAT becomes an impractical solution, but remote FAT improves business continuity and allows utilities and NOJA Power to facilitate the continued provision of essential electricity supply reliability.

For capital equipment, FAT is the mainstay of product procurement as a process to validate the equipment is fit for purpose and free from defects. Conventional FAT calls for witnessing routine tests according to technical standards, where inspectors select a subset of the equipment for routine re-test to demonstrate compliance. FAT inspections can add significant cost to projects, when travel expenses are considered. With a remote FAT, this travel cost is mitigated through usage of video conferencing for the FAT process.

Certification of the test equipment and applied parameters are provided through third party calibration certification, ensuring that the test equipment delivers genuine validated results. Coupled with the clear serialisation of equipment, remote inspectors ensure they have evaluated the equipment comprehensively and have sufficient documentation to support their decision regarding acceptance of the equipment as fit for purpose.

NOJA Power’s remote FAT system includes a set of cameras throughout the test laboratories, simultaneously fed with audio to the inspectors. Inspectors are able to provide instruction and request clarifications during the process, ensuring all inspection criteria are met. At the conclusion of testing, a test report of the conducted tests is provided to the inspector as record.

“Remote meetings and video conferencing is becoming the new norm,” says NOJA Power Group Managing Director Neil O’Sullivan. “As travel restrictions are expected to remain in place for the next 6 to 12 months, establishing remote FAT capability in our test laboratory will allow our customers who prefer to make FAT inspections to still do so remotely from the safety of their own offices without having to travel internationally. Furthermore, we are not only offering this remote FAT service, we are also providing remote training using similar video conferencing technology as well.”