JD369

You sound like you run an efficient shop. 
Ours is a little odd. 
I believe that the weld shop was originally set up to support the machinists, there are 6 full time machinists running CNC and manual machines and only one full time welder (me-though I also do CNC and manual when needed) and the other welder mainly does coordinate measuring--which is a QC check for  the machinists--and only welds the more complicated stuff, she's been here for 20 years.  We are part of a university's research laboratory and part of our charter is not to do production work, with the rare exception of course.  For the most part, we weld the structures and components that support the engineer's designs for them to test and present to the client which for the most part is the Navy.  From that point on, the designs go out of our shop to be made else where.  Sometimes what we do is just to test a theory and then the finished piece is not used again.  The shop is not very exacting on being up to code, because most of the time what we are working on doesnt require it, and there is hardly any testing, auditing or any other screening of our work--we just take pride in doing the best that we can.  If the job requires certification, then of course we do it but in two years, only two projects have required it--a structural steel job that I did and a titanium housing that the other welder did.  Most days I can find on my desk a work order for a steel fixture, a stainless steel repair for a machinist, a frame of aluminum that will take a month to make working from shoddy blueprints--sometimes the engineers are students, at which point we show them the right way to put welding symbols and such in--and answering questions about all manners of metals and how they will react with different conditions.  I spend alot of time in this forum or in books trying to find the right answer.  I offered to get certified in everything but they were waiting for the other welder to certify as a CWI so she could do it for me, but she hasnt made it through the process yet.  Otherwise, they dont want to pay the money for it to be done by an outside source.
Whenever we are asked to do something that we arent qualified to do--see thread on HTing AL 6061--or absolutely needs documentation--mil spec titanium--we try and keep a record of what we did so if there are any problems we can refer to those.  In the 20 years that the other welder has been here, there has only been one instance that she was called on to present documentation.  Now that she has gone through the CWI process, she is more aware of what is needed, which is why the contamination of the titanium came up.
Otherwise, we just take each job as it comes.  Luckily, the engineers really appreciate what we do for them.  It is easier for them to run over here and change something that they realized after the fact than if they had to take the project to another location altogether.  The procedure at your shop works because once the blueprints are there, they are assumed correct and are followed to the letter, which is how they should be.  Here we NEVER trust a blueprint--I cant tell you how many times the engineers say they just thought it looked right or they just pasted it from another blueprint that was similar!  So we are a little different.  It sounds like your shop is run really well and there are times that that sounds wonderful--it can be stressful trying to figure stuff out on your own--but the flexibility built into our shop makes it work best for the engineers.  Since they are the ones that pay us, they win. 

Rebekah