In an industry long ruled by legacy platforms, VisualAIM is challenging the status quo with a more agile, customer-focused approach. What began as an internal project within a nondestructive examination firm has grown into a standalone software company that's reshaping how petrochemical and industrial facilities manage inspection data, visualize equipment, and stay compliant.
The story starts in 2008, when Brendan Meutzner joined TechCorr as a software architect. Back then, the software was developed in-house to support inspection workflows—but Meutzner and his team quickly saw bigger potential. “There’s a tendency in this space for software vendors to ignore what users really need,” says Meutzner. That frustration became a catalyst. In 2012, the software division spun off from TechCorr and became VisualAIM, a company focused solely on building better tools for industrial users.
By 2018, VisualAIM made a bold move—rebuilding its platform from the ground up. Rather than patching legacy code, the team re-engineered the software using modern architectures, while preserving the domain expertise they had built over a decade. “We didn’t just upgrade the system-we redesigned it around flexibility,” Meutzner explains. That meant a scalable, web-based ecosystem that could adapt quickly to customer demands without sacrificing reliability. One of VisualAIM’s early innovations was integrating intelligent drawings with mechanical screens in a web environment—an ambitious concept at the time. “When we launched, there weren’t any web-based systems doing this,” Meutzner recalls. But real-world use revealed a key insight: most clients already had their own CAD drawings. Requiring them to recreate everything inside one platform didn’t make sense.
The company responded by separating its visualization tools into two connected products: the Intelligent Drawing Platform, which works with existing CAD data, and the Mechanical Integrity Suite, which manages asset data and inspection records. This shift allowed clients to keep their drawings while gaining new layers of functionality. While competitors raced to build flashy 3D visualization features, VisualAIM took a different path. Their focus remains on 2D drawings like P&IDs, enhanced with 3D tools like GIS maps and facility scans. Meutzner puts it simply: “When you need to get from point A to point B, do you use Street View or the map?” The answer, for most industrial users, is the map. 2D views are faster, easier to understand, and far cheaper to implement—while still solving the majority of use cases.
VisualAIM’s most powerful differentiator might not be technical—it’s cultural. The company is known for its responsiveness to customer requests. Unlike many software firms that require consensus from large user groups before making changes, VisualAIM often builds features directly based on one-on-one feedback. One major tire manufacturer reportedly chose VisualAIM after being told by a competitor that “70% of users” would need to agree before any changes could be made. VisualAIM’s flexibility won the deal—and a loyal advocate. “We’ve had customers go out of their way to recommend us based on how responsive we are,” says Meutzner.
VisualAIM’s product suite includes three tightly integrated components:
Together, these tools create a feedback loop: equipment tagged in IDP links directly to records in MI Suite, and field data from Workflow is automatically stored, organized, and ready for analysis. As the company grows, its challenge is maintaining the same responsiveness that earned its early wins. Meutzner sees that as non-negotiable. “Our advantage isn’t just what we build—it’s how we respond,” he says. “That has to remain core to who we are.”
