87 / 234
LINKING PEOPLE, JOINING NATIONS
the IIW’s ETQ&C programmes on a global basis’. One of its key objectives was to actively
examine ways to address the worldwide shortage of welding personnel. The scheme now
included more than a third of all IIWANBs and a quarter of all IIWANBCCs from outside
Europe. This caused Guild to remark, ‘…interest in the IAB system is global and it is now
rapidly becoming a true international system’.
The Institute had achieved some remarkable things by 2010 with the IIW IAB having
appointed more than 40 ANBs with 700 associated ATBs worldwide. The IIW IAB ETQ&C
system, as a result, offered IIW Member Societies a viable and profitable business platform
to work from with an estimated global turnover of USD 25 million a year. In 2010 over 10
000 diplomas were issued for the first time in one year raising the cumulative total awarded
by IIWANBs to almost 70 000 diplomas since the scheme began.
From IIW’s point of view, one of the real successes came
from the growing involvement of China in the certification
of companies, starting with a total of 11 companies certified
in 2010. Mr Xie Yinglong, China’s IIW ANBCC Scheme
Manager indicated the scheme’s potential by stating that there
were nearly 10 000 manufacturers utilising welding in China.
36
By 2016 interest in company certification had risen substantially
with over 350 Chinese companies certified in accordance with
the IIW MCS ISO 3834 programme.
37
This had resulted
from active promotion and marketing. More and more
companies in China were showing increasing interest
in becoming certified because of the benefits and
opportunities it brought to them in terms of product
quality improvement and international trade.
This potential for growth was tempered, however, by the ongoing
challenge to increase the uptake of company and personnel certification
in other international jurisdictions. The reasons for this are manifold, as
explained earlier, and are entwined in a system where welder qualification
is performed, for example, in accordance with national standards such
as AWS, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), German
Institute for Standardization (DIN), American Petroleum Institute (API) and
international standards such as ISO and CEN, or through conformity to other
countries’ manufacturing statutes or standards.
The question of welding inspector certification again came into consideration when
the Advisory Group, under the Chairmanship of Costa, reported to the Board of Directors
on its work over the period 2013-15 regarding the possible introduction of an IIW IAB
Xie Yinglong