A New Law Requiring Inspection Engineer Redundancy

Introduction: In the petrochemical industry, we have noticed that many separate organizations are attempting to improve the quality of engineering and inspection. For example, many readers are familiar with the efforts of ASME (Post-Construction Code Requirements for Qualification & Certification of NDE Personnel), ASNT (ACCP NDT Central Certification Program), AWS/TWI (CSWIP NDT certification program), API (initiative for certification of NDT UT shear-wave weld inspectors), and NACE (Corrosion Engineering Personnel Qualification & Certification).

There is a problem in the sudden abundance of these programs, and the overlaps and redundancies among them: each new qualification/certification (q/c) program draws some industry support away from existing programs. If the current trend continues, eventually some of the q/c agencies will be forced out of the business. The “good news” in that forecast is that the q/c choices will be less confusing than they are now; the “bad news” is that the best q/c choices may not be the ones that survive. The best choices are the ones that provide the best inspection value to the customer, along with the necessary security to the general public. The q/c choices which seem to have the best chance of survival are those which have the force of Code or Law behind them-and those are often NOT the q/c choices with the best inspection value.