Every inspection software demo looks good. The data is clean, the workflow is rehearsed, and the hard parts of ownership, migration, integration, offline reality, exit, never come up unless you raise them. These twelve questions raise them. Ask all twelve of every vendor, in the same order, and take notes on what gets answered directly versus deflected to a follow-up.
Field reality
1. Show me capture with the network off. Not "we support offline," but a live demonstration: airplane mode, record a finding with photos, reconnect, watch it sync. Ask what happens when two people edit the same record offline. If the answer is vague, the field crews will find out for you.
2. How many taps from opening the app to a saved finding with a photo? Count them in the demo. Field adoption is decided by this number, in gloves, on a ladder, in the wind.
3. What happens to in-progress work when a tablet dies or is dropped in a drain? The answer should involve local persistence and recovery, not "that's rare."
Data and calculations
4. Migrate this sample of our real legacy data, before we sign. Bring an ugly extract: inconsistent CML numbering, renamed equipment, a few decades of formats. The vendor's reaction to real data tells you more than any slide about their migration methodology.
5. Walk me through one corrosion rate calculation, end to end. Which readings were used, which were excluded and why, how the rate handles a component replacement, and where the code reference is. If the demo driver cannot explain a number on their own screen, your inspectors will not be able to defend it in an audit.
6. How do we get all of our data out, on our own, without asking you? Format, completeness, attachments included, and whether export is a right in the contract or a professional-services engagement. This question is best asked early, while everyone is still friendly.
Integration and records
7. Show a finding becoming a work order in our CMMS, and the completion coming back. Named systems, live if possible. "We have an API" is not an integration; a demonstrated round trip is.
8. How are radiography images handled? If your program includes RT, ask specifically about DICONDE: whether images are stored keyed to welds and equipment, or whether the system holds only the reader sheets.
9. Can a record be edited after sign-off, and what does the trail show? The right answer is that signed records are immutable or that corrections create visible, attributed revisions. Ask to see the audit trail of the demo record they just edited.
Ownership and survival
10. Who configures a new inspection form or checklist, us or you? And what does it cost each time? Systems that require vendor services for every form change accumulate either invoices or workarounds.
11. What does your roadmap owe us? Ask how feature requests from customers your size actually get prioritized, and for an example of one shipped in the last year.
12. Give us two references who went live more than two years ago. Not launch references. Year-two references, who have been through a renewal, an audit, and a version upgrade. Ask them what they would negotiate differently.
Scoring the answers
The pattern to watch is not which vendor has the flashiest answer but which answers survive contact with specifics. A vendor who says "let me show you" is telling you one thing; a vendor who says "we can discuss that in a technical follow-up" is telling you another. Weight the questions by your own pain: if your last audit was the crisis, questions five, six, and nine are your shortlist.
We publish this list knowing intelliSPEC will be asked these questions too, and that is the point: numbers 1, 4, 6, and 9 in particular are where we would rather be examined than take your word for a competitor's demo. Bring the ugly data extract. It is the cheapest diligence you will ever run.
