Fourteen Welds With the Wrong Stamp
During a records audit you find 14 welds stamped 'TW-07' with June dates. The qualification register shows TW-07 (T. Whitfield) on unpaid leave from 1 to 21 June. Another welder, T. White (TW-11), worked those shifts. Shop practice is that welders collect their stamps at the start of shift and drop them at the end. Separately, a trainee, R. Diaz, has been running production fillet welds for six weeks 'under the supervision' of the lead hand and has no qualification record. The 14 welds are 3/8 in fillet welds on bridge girder stiffeners. The contract invokes AWS D1.1 and requires that welds be made by qualified welders with identification records.
1. What does the stamp prove, and what must you do about the 14 welds?
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A stamp proves only that a stamp was used. It is an identity record, and that identity is now contradicted: TW-07 was not on site. The traceability chain is broken for 14 welds.
- Establish who actually welded them. Shift rosters, time cards, supervisor statements, the other welder's own account, and physical evidence such as bead profile and tie-in habits. Physical evidence supports a conclusion; it does not replace one.
- If a qualified welder made them and that can be documented and signed, the qualification requirement is satisfied. Correct the record, note why, and sign. A wrong stamp is a records nonconformance, not automatically a weld defect, but it has to be resolved on evidence rather than assurance.
- If it cannot be established, the welds have no demonstrated qualified-welder basis. Appearance does not substitute. That is an engineering decision: remove and re-weld, or accept on supplemental examination plus written acceptance by the engineer or owner, with the cost on the fabricator.
Either way, quarantine the 14 welds from shipment and painting until the question is closed.
2. The trainee, R. Diaz, has welded production fillets under supervision for six weeks. Assess the situation and state your actions.
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D1.1 requires production welding to be done by welders qualified for the process, position and thickness involved. 'Under supervision' is a training arrangement, not a qualification. Nothing in the code lets an unqualified welder produce production welds because a qualified welder is standing nearby; supervision controls the process, it does not transfer qualification.
Consequences:
- Every weld Diaz made is nonconforming on qualification grounds, whether or not it looks acceptable.
- The lead hand who permitted it and any supervisor who knew are part of the finding, not bystanders.
Actions:
- Stop him on production work today.
- Identify and quarantine his welds by work order and date. If he carried no stamp, that is a second traceability gap on top of the first.
- Qualify him. A fillet test in the position he will actually weld is enough for stiffener fillets, and it takes a day.
- Keep him on a documented training path with a 'training only, no production' designation until the record exists.
3. Write up the root causes and the corrective actions you would put to the project manager.
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The root causes are systemic, not individual failures.
- Stamps are treated as personal property. Corrective action: stamps held in a locker or signed out against a log, issued only to welders on the qualification roster, and the stamp number tied to work orders on the weld map.
- The register is not linked to production. Corrective action: a roster by process, position and thickness range, cross-checked weekly against the stamp log and open work orders. Hire and leave dates flagged so a stamp cannot appear while its owner is off site.
- No gate on unqualified welders. Corrective action: only roster welders get a stamp and an assignment; supervisors trained on that rule; trainees flagged in the system.
- Records corrected after the fact without evidence. Corrective action: any correction to a weld record needs evidence, a signature and a date, so an auditor can trace it.
- No routine self-check. Corrective action: a monthly internal audit of stamps against roster against work orders, reported to the project manager. Disclose this finding to the owner's inspector yourself. Finding it internally is a management strength; being caught with it is a contract problem.