UK Section of IIW

Commission Report

Annual Assembly

July, 2009 - Singapore

Working Unit Number and Name

Select Committee on Quality
Management in Welding

Working Unit Chairman

Dr Rainer Zwatz

Attendance

11 representing Germany, Australia, USA, Finland, Canada, Italy, UK, Nigeria and Czech Republic.

Technical areas discussed

The project on collecting information on the standards used for welding regulations in different member countries is being pursued. New input has been received from Japan, USA and Germany. One further attempt will be made to solicit information and if this fails, the project will be closed.

A project was started four years ago to establish criteria for examiners of welder and WPS qualification tests.

The Chairman presented a document he had prepared on the responsibilities and skills required for the witnessing examiner and testers. It was considered that this was excessive and would take too long to complete. I agreed to propose revisions to the document for discussion in Paris in January and approval in Kiev.

The project to identify examples of failures in order to prepare guidance on how such incidents can be avoided has been dropped.

There was a session on ISO 3834 auditing check lists. It was agreed that the IAB Group B (Working Unit 6) check list was for ISO 3834 auditing whilst SC STAND's document was to be used by manufacturers during ISO 3834 implementation. This will be discussed more fully in Paris in January.

I gave a report on the problems I had encountered in my work as a welding engineer reviewing WPS/PQR documents with Cameron.

The chairman has included in the programme a project to prepare a guidance document to inform people how to use the different ISO WPS standards. An attempt to get ISO/TC44/SC10 to prepare such a document has not been successful and SC STAND has accepted the role to prepare such a document. The scope for such a document was agreed.

Resolutions passed

There were no Resolutions.

Documents for publication

There were no technical reports issued for publication.

Comments of relevance to UK

I would consider the projects now developing will be of interest in the UK.

Future activities of the SC

The next meetings will take place in: Paris on Wednesday 20 January 2010 at 14.00 hr.

General comments, if applicable, on the value, level of activity, etc.

The Select Committee is developing a useful programme.

SUMMARY FOR PUBLICATION

The Select Committee on Quality Management in Welding is making progress in producing useful reports in the future.

Report prepared by David Shackleton (01609 882227) on 19 July 2009.