IIW History 1990-2015

At the Beijing Annual Assembly in September 1994, two all- day meetings were held by WG 13 outlining the progress made by the Working Group. The meeting, on the first day, was attended by 46 IIW participants from around the world. This meeting covered key issues such as the implementation process and the need to address certain other concerns without holding back the scheme. 8 At the conclusion of the meeting, on the second day, two resolutions were proposed to proceed with the IIW international qualification and certification scheme. These resolutions were ‘that the IIW voluntary scheme for the education, training, qualification and certification of welding personnel, as outlined in document XIV-574-93 now be implemented’ and the other resolution was ‘that the Governing Council shall establish a new Committee “Qualification + Authorisation”, which will report directly to the Governing Council’. The two resolutions were adopted by all those present. On the following Saturday the Governing Council of IIW unanimously approved these resolutions to go ahead with a global scheme for the ETQ&C of welding personnel. 9 C-XIV, through its WG 13, was then entrusted by the General Assembly in Stockholm, Sweden in 1995 to prepare a draft guide to cover all aspects involved in the qualification and certification of welding

Christian Ahrens

Wolf-Dieter Strippelmann

personnel. Dr Ralph Long (USA) and Prof. Dr-Ing.Wolf-Dieter Strippelmann (Germany) participated actively in this work. A new Commission was also formed (C-VII Authorisation and Qualification ) to add a further dimension to this initiative through the chairmanship of Mr ChristianAhrens (Germany) with the support of Mr David Reynolds (Canada) as Vice-Chair. 10 Ahrens was a sound choice for Chair of C-VII having been head of education and training at Schweißtechnische Lehr und Versuchsanstalt (SLV) Duisburg (German Welding Institute Duisburg) for many years. Through his work on C-VII, and a determined approach, he was destined to take on the post of the Chair of the IIW International Authorisation Board’s Group A: Education, Training and Qualification when it was eventually formed in 1999. Included in the main tasks of C-VII, therefore, were to determine the general admission and transitional requirements for IIWANBs. In this respect IIWhad already acknowledged that EWF had started before IIW in developing its own scheme and it was

for this reason that the EWF document Rules for the Implementation of EWF Guidelines for Training and Qualification of Welding Personnel was adopted and the EWF ANBs were automatically recognised by IIW in line with that previously agreed between the two parties. 11

Tim Jessop

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