About Qualification Responsibility

Date 02-26-2009 07:19

Dear All,

D1.1-2008, 4.1.1.1 Qualification Responsibility have mentioned that: "... Properly documented WPSs qualified under the provisions of this code by a company that later has a name change due to voluntary action or consolidation with a parent company may utilize the new name on its WPS documents while maintaining the supporting PQR qualification records with the old company name". How about if company A set up a branch(called company B below) at another country, whether company B can utilize the new name on its WPS documents while maintaining the supporting PQR qualification records with the company A.

Thanks & best Regards
viet.tq

By Lawrence (*****)

Date 02-26-2009 12:45 Edited 02-26-2009 12:48

I would think for the sake of quality control, if production is moving to another part of the world and an entire new workforce was developed, that simple common sense would dictate that the procedures be qualified in the new environment, with the new equipment and new workforce.

If you have enough money to build a new facility in some other country and fill it with equipment, you damn well have enough money to run a couple of PQR's.

I'll let somebody else argue the code interpretation aspect.

By 803056

Date 02-26-2009 13:21 Edited 02-26-2009 13:30

In general there is no reason why the company can not utilize the WPSs already developed whether they are prequalified for work per D1.1 or qualified by testing. They are intellectual property. They are transferred as intellectual property to the new owner when the company is purchased or taken over by another company. If the WPS is properly written and it provides the necessary information to the welder, it is fully functional regardless of where it is implemented. Hopefully, the welders can read the WPSs, if not, they should to be translated into the language of the country where they are used.

Consider this; if the company had to requalify their procedures because they moved to a new location or because they set up a new branch facility, contractors would have to qualify their procedures and possibly their welders for every specific job site. Move over Obama, we have our own stimulus program!

Having said that, every welding standard and project specification has their own little twists and turns. I have been on projects where the contractors have had to qualify their procedures and welders for that specific project irrespective of the what the "code" required or what WPSs and PQRs were already available. This is sometimes the case on bridge projects even when two different bridges were being fabricated for the same state and they were being fabricated side by side in the same building! Every state DOT has their own requirements that have to be reviewed to ensure compliance.

Best regards - Al