Staying up-to-date, preparing in different courses and maintaining a responsible mindset with your work will support excellent auditing and ideal results in projects.
by Juan Manuel Álvarez*
The purpose of this article is to establish the importance of the inspections that are carried out, both to the materials and to the products, during the development of projects or inspections that aim to determine the quality of these in compliance with previously established specifications.
Let's start from the context in which it is determined that the importance of inspections does not lie in the fact that there is a support with a signature of a professional, who may not be certified in the inspection technique, as sometimes happens. Ideally, it should be from an inspector, even not necessarily professional, but who is certified in the technique fulfilled to carry out said inspection, as established and required by the standards for certification of inspectors.
The above statement is based on the requirements that must be met to validate the inspections and also on the proven demonstration of the competences that must be had, which is why I want to highlight this importance through the responsibilities of an audit.
If we start from the fact that an audit is based on quality control in a specific project, then for the development of a project in which inspections are carried out either of corrosion, coatings, non-destructive tests (for example radiography, ultrasound, magnetic particles, penetrating liquids, Eddy currents, acoustic emission, thermography and even visual among others), the auditor must have the appropriate competence in the technique that requires verifying or monitoring, since the fact of being at the time of the inspection or signing a document as an auditor when you do not have the competence becomes a bad or terrible interventory.
When an auditor does not have the competence to verify quality with regard to inspections, the quality will be given by the contractor's inspector through his expertise and specific knowledge, but not by the auditor, since he has no idea what he is signing on behalf of the client he represents.
To complement the above, it is the duty of the client to demand from the auditor the competence or competences with which he has to be able to monitor according to the quality, or he will be directly responsible for the failure that occurs in each of the inspections and with it the consequences that this could entail.
Beyond documentation
Let's do a hypothetical exercise and we will assume that an auditor is limited to collecting documentation requesting reports, supports and even standards. Another example may be that an auditor signs documents in which data of results obtained in which the specifications of the contract, or of the standard, if cited, are not met; or readings with equipment not calibrated or misused in the procedure of the technique. From the above examples it can be understood how inspections are not in themselves just documentation.
In reality, inspections must be the result of objective practices in which procedures are complied with that demonstrate, through the results, the quality of a good or service. All of the above can only be possible through the ideally certified inspector, who makes this happen.
As far as standards are concerned, these are recommendations that allow the inspector to know that there is a quality criterion, and therefore, in the specifications of the contract they must be endorsed with standards, for example; so that the quality framework within which the contract for the good or service was designed is corroborated and monitored through the certified inspector, which is used as a backup of what has been fulfilled in the procedure, in practice and in the technique that is carried out.
Additionally, for the function of the audit it is important to verify that it is carried out correctly and that you have the appropriate competence to really have a criterion that allows determining the quality of the good or service through the result of the inspection and thus define that the specifications are met.
Not in vain to achieve the levels of the certifications of the inspectors, extensive times of demonstrable experiences are required in documents verified by the associations that issue them and in theoretical-practical knowledge that must be overcome in evaluations with a minimum percentage of validation of knowledge.
In summary, the result of an inspection is the assessment of a material or product (for our present example) that must be duly supported by the competence of the inspector in the corresponding technique, by the standards complied with regarding that inspection technique (latest version or updated version), by the equipment used in the inspection, for the calibration of the equipment (annual calibration granted by a metrology workshop), for the calibrations in the field (on a day-to-day basis, even in the revision of calibration in shifts if deemed necessary), for the consumable elements or materials, and even for the conditions in which the inspections are carried out (ease of access, weather conditions, humidity, temperature, lighting, good handling of the equipment, etc.).
Consequently, if the inspections must be endorsed by the presence of an auditory in a project, this audit must have the competence to determine and guarantee the quality of the materials or products in compliance with its work and representation of the client based on quality, contemplating the knowledge, verification and monitoring of the variables related above and not dedicated to collecting documentary information, request what you do not know or submit only to be present during inspections.
I hope that the basis of the inspection itself has been demonstrated, I remind readers that the series of articles that will be developed this year regarding inspections will be complemented in future articles by topics such as inspection procedures, the different inspection techniques and their selection, as well as the assessment and interpretation of the results obtained in the inspections, according to the first article of this year. I thank the readers for their comments and, of course, for what I can gladly collaborate with. See you soon!
* Juan Manuel Álvarez is a Consulting Member of the technical committees of NACE International, Member of A.S.T.M, of ACICOR (Colombian Association of Corrosion Engineers), of ASCOR (Colombian Association of Corrosion and Protection), of ACOSEND (Colombian Association of Welding and Non-Destructive Testing), of ICONTEC (Colombian Institute of Technical Standards), of the technical committees of END, Welding, Coatings, Fuels and others. He is also a university professor and lecturer. You can write to the e-mail: [email protected]
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