United Controls International Accelerates Nuclear Industry Support with Remote Visual Inspections

The Challenge: Supporting a Global Nuclear Customer Base Without the Friction of Travel

Nuclear power plants run on unforgiving schedules. During refueling outages, every hour of downtime translates into millions of dollars and added pressure on the grid. Safety-related components — motors, circuit breakers, instrumentation, control panels, electronic equipment — must be inspected, dedicated, repaired, and returned to service under precise quality controls and on tight timelines. UCI's traditional service model created several friction points that slowed this work down:

• Travel-Heavy Audits and Inspections: UCI's QA team regularly conducts source inspections, supplier audits, and witness testing at sub-supplier facilities across the U.S. and internationally. Each visit required flights, hotels, scheduling around plant access windows, and in many cases security clearances or site-specific training before an auditor could even step on the floor. A single audit could consume a full week of an engineer's time, much of it spent in transit.
  
  
• Delayed Field Support During Outages: When a utility customer encountered a problem during equipment installation, refurbishment, or troubleshooting, getting a UCI specialist physically on site often took days. Phone calls and emailed photos could only describe so much. Without seeing motor windings, breaker components, or wiring conditions in real time, UCI's experts struggled to give definitive guidance, and customers were left waiting for a specialist to arrive.
  
  
• Communication Gaps on Complex Equipment: UCI's repair and refurbishment work involves intricate components — stator windings, RTDs, lugs, fasteners, large legacy circuit breaker assemblies, and obsolete electronic boards. Verbal descriptions over the phone frequently led to misinterpretation. Photos sent by email captured a single angle and rarely answered the engineer's actual question, leading to back-and-forth threads that stretched diagnoses across hours or days.
  
  
• Receipt Inspection Bottlenecks: Items arriving at UCI's Norcross facilities for dedication or testing sometimes raised questions that required input from the customer or original supplier. Without a fast way to share live visual context, these conversations slowed the dedication process and pushed back delivery dates.
  
  
• Knowledge Transfer to Newer Staff: UCI's specialists hold decades of expertise in motor refurbishment, circuit breaker rework, and digital item dedication. Passing that knowledge to less experienced engineers and technicians during live work was difficult when senior staff weren't physically present, particularly when the work was happening at a customer site or supplier facility.
  
  
• Documentation Burden: Every inspection, witness test, and dedication activity must be documented to satisfy NQA-1 and 10CFR 50 Appendix B. Capturing high-quality, traceable visual evidence during a field visit — and then organizing it back at headquarters — added administrative overhead that pulled engineers away from technical work.

UCI needed a way to put its experts inside any plant, supplier facility, or warehouse anywhere in the world, instantly — without the cost, delay, and complexity of flying someone there.

The Solution: App-Free Visual Collaboration That Works at the Plant, the Supplier, and the Bench

UCI selected Blitzz Concierge — an app-free mobile video platform — to extend its engineering, QA, and service capabilities into the field without the overhead of physical travel.

Key features utilized by UCI:

1. App-Free Access via SMS or Email Link: A UCI engineer or QA specialist sends a secure link via SMS, email, or WhatsApp. The recipient — whether a utility technician, supplier QA representative, or sub-tier vendor — taps the link and is connected to UCI via voice and video in seconds. No app downloads, no IT approvals, no friction at facilities where installing third-party software is difficult or prohibited.
   
   
2. Real-Time Visual Inspections and Audits: UCI's QA team can witness supplier testing, perform source inspections, and complete audit walkdowns remotely. Engineers see exactly what the on-site contact sees — test stands, traveler documentation, calibration stickers, equipment nameplates, fixture conditions — enabling thorough verification without leaving the office.
   
   
3. Live Field Guidance for Repairs and Refurbishments: When a utility technician encounters an issue with a UCI-supplied or UCI-refurbished motor, breaker, or electronic component, a UCI specialist can join the call instantly, see the equipment exactly as the technician sees it, and walk through troubleshooting, replacement procedures, or refurbishment steps step by step.
   
   
4. Augmented Reality (AR) Annotation: Both UCI's engineer and the on-site contact can draw, circle, and highlight directly on the live video stream. This is invaluable for pointing out a specific lug, identifying a worn bearing, marking the correct terminal on a breaker, or guiding a technician to the precise component being discussed — eliminating the ambiguity that comes with verbal descriptions of complex assemblies.
   
   
5. Photo and Video Capture for QA Records: UCI captures high-quality images and recordings during sessions and stores them as part of the formal inspection or dedication record. This satisfies NQA-1 documentation expectations and creates a verifiable audit trail without the manual work of organizing photos after a site visit.
   
   
6. Session Recording for Training and Knowledge Retention: Recorded sessions become living training material for newer engineers and technicians. Senior specialists' guidance during real refurbishments and inspections is preserved and reusable, accelerating onboarding and protecting institutional knowledge as experienced staff retire.
   
   
7. Secure, Single-Use Sessions: Sessions are short-lived, link-based, and require no persistent installation on the customer's device — a meaningful advantage when working with utilities, suppliers, and government-adjacent customers who maintain strict cybersecurity and access controls.
   
   
8. Multi-Party Collaboration: UCI can bring an engineer, a QA specialist, and a project manager into the same session, allowing real-time technical and quality decisions to happen on a single call instead of being routed through email chains over several days.

The Results: Faster Turnarounds, Fewer Trips, Stronger Customer Service

By integrating Blitzz Concierge into its day-to-day operations, UCI transformed how it supports utility customers, qualifies suppliers, and executes safety-related work:

• Reduced Travel for Audits and Inspections: Many supplier audits, source inspections, and witness tests that previously required on-site visits are now completed remotely, freeing UCI's QA team to support more activities in less time and reducing travel cost across the engineering organization.
  
  
• Faster Field Resolution During Outages: Utility customers no longer wait days for a specialist to arrive on site. A UCI expert can be visually present within minutes, helping technicians resolve issues during refueling outages and time-critical repairs without losing operational hours.
  
  
• First-Time-Right Repairs and Refurbishments: Live visual collaboration during refurbishment work — motor stator rewinds, breaker rework, electronic equipment failure analysis — means UCI's engineers verify the issue accurately the first time, reducing rework, unnecessary part orders, and back-and-forth communication.
  
  
• Stronger Receipt Inspection and Dedication Process: Questions that arise during receipt inspection or commercial grade dedication can be resolved in a single live session with the customer or original supplier, keeping items moving through UCI's facility and protecting promised lead times.
  
  
• Documented, Traceable Inspections: Photo and video evidence captured during sessions is automatically tied to the corresponding inspection or dedication record, supporting NQA-1 and 10CFR 50 Appendix B documentation requirements without additional administrative work.
  
  
• Accelerated Knowledge Transfer: Newer engineers and technicians learn directly from UCI's senior specialists in real time, on real equipment, building expertise faster while the work is being done — not after the fact.
  
  
• Better Customer and Supplier Experience: Utilities and suppliers experience UCI as a more responsive, more available partner. The same engineering depth UCI is known for is now reachable in minutes, from anywhere, without the logistical burden of in-person visits.
  
  
• Sustained 24/7 Support Promise: UCI's commitment to round-the-clock customer support is reinforced by the ability to deliver visual expertise on demand, regardless of time zone or location.

Key Success Metrics

Conclusion

By integrating Blitzz Concierge into its engineering, QA, and field service operations, United Controls International has eliminated the travel, communication, and scheduling barriers that traditionally stood between its experts and the equipment they support. What once required a flight, a clearance, and a week on the calendar can now happen on a phone screen — with the same quality, the same documentation, and the same engineering rigor that has defined UCI for forty years.

This transformation has allowed UCI to serve more nuclear utility customers, qualify more suppliers, and complete more safety-related work in less time, while protecting the strict quality standards demanded by NQA-1, 10CFR 50 Appendix B, and ISO 9001. Utilities benefit from faster outage support and more responsive technical service. Suppliers experience smoother audits and witness testing. UCI's engineers spend more time applying their expertise and less time in airports.

For an industry where downtime is measured in millions of dollars and safety is non-negotiable, putting a qualified expert visually on site within minutes is more than a productivity gain — it is a meaningful contribution to the safe, reliable operation of nuclear power plants worldwide.

With Blitzz, United Controls International isn't just supplying the quality behind the power — they're delivering it, visually, anywhere it's needed, the moment it's needed.