IIW History 1990-2015

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.

Xie Yinglong

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

LINKING PEOPLE, JOINING NATIONS