In large, multimillion dollars contracts such as the construction of an oil refinery, power station, steel mill and the like, the Owner is obviously the company to whom the plant belongs. It is usual in such large contracts that the Owner appoints a consulting engineering firm to be responsible for the design, procurement and construction of the plant. This firm is usually called the Engineer in the contract documents and all contractors must respond to him, because he is acting in behalf of the Owner, who awarded the Engineer the necessary authority.
Sometimes, however, the Owner does not appoint an outside firm; instead, he organizes an engineering group with persons that belong to his own staff. In this case, this group is also called the Engineer in the contract documents, because it has the same responsibilities and authority.
In your case, I would suppose that a steel door factory is not a very large company, but rather a medium or small sized one. So, if you have subcontracted the welding to be done by an outside company, you can very well designate someone of your staff to inspect the subcontractor's job, to approve or reject it when necessary.
In this case, you are the Owner AND the Engineer.
Agree?
Giovanni S. Crisi
Sao Paulo - Brazil

Hi Lew

I am not sure which AWS std. you use as the welding standard, but I believe that it probably does not matter for this question.

I am of the opinion that any requirement of the std. only becomes enforceable in criminal law if it is in some way referenced by such a law. In other words, if you have a law that states you must follow the requirements of a std. when fabricating for instance a pressure vessel, then the requirements of that std. actually becomes an extension of the law. Most countries have such laws dealing with structures such as pressure vessels and buildings.

I do not believe that many countries would have such laws dealing with steel doors. As such, the use of an AWS code is either something that the OEM does to ensure his own product quality, or is asked for by a client in a contract. Under these situations, the roles of "engineer", "fabricator's inspector" etc. becomes much more loose.

If your company is enforcing such a std. on its own operations, then you can also decide for yourself who the "engineer" must be. If it is a matter of agreement between supplier and customer, in a contract, then the contract should say who the "engineer" is.

At any rate, I believe that your problem is probably more of a practical issue than a legal one. In this case I would say that anyone can be the "engineer" as long as s/he is capable of making the necessarily correct technical decisions. The only caution is however that whatever decision you take must be defendable against someone making a civil case, should one of your doors in some way injure someone. (A situation that I believe companies in the USA are frequently exposed to.)

Hope this helps

Regards
Niekie Jooste
Fabristruct Solutions