Atema

In 2007, Minnesota experienced an unpredictable disaster. The Minneapolis I-35W Bridge collapsed over the Mississippi River. There was public turmoil as traffic was immobilized and rumors spread through the public and the media, the most frightening of which was the suspicion of a terrorist threat. In the end, 13 people were killed and 145 were injured.

After such a tragedy, auditing the suppliers to the Owner of the bridge becomes a great challenge. Suddenly everything changes at all levels of an organization. An auditor must face a new raw and volatile environment.

Above all an auditor must remember two unbreakable rules of auditing after a disaster:

1. DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT TALK ABOUT THE DISASTER AT ANYTIME DURING THE AUDIT.

As an auditor, it is tempting to fall into the vortex of emotion that surrounds such an event. The auditor is often the first "face of the agency" a supplier sees after a disaster, and sometimes the disaster is the reason for the audit. Auditees may look to an auditor for answers to why the disaster happened, or auditees may expect the disaster to be the scope of the audit. Everyone is watching with more acute vision and listening with sharper ears. Anything you say or do as an auditor can and will be construed as the official opinion of the Owner you represent. Keep off the subject of the event.

2. Stick to audit criteria

It is paramount that the auditor keeps a professional façade. Mixed emotions likely will permeate the staff of a fabrication shop after a tragic event. Guilt, Blame, and generally bad feelings inspire auditees to look for direction. As we mentioned above, that direction should not be driven by the disaster itself. The codes, standards, and specifications set forth as the sources for audit criteria remain the driving force behind audit observations. The purpose of the audit is not to find all the things that went wrong in the disaster; it is to assure that requirements are met and procedures are in place to produce a good product.

P.S. On May 22, 2012, Terry Logan, our Vice President, will be giving his presentation "How to Audit After a Disaster" at the ASQ World Conference in Anaheim, CA. He will discuss in detail and from experience the critical things that must be considered by auditors in trying times.

If you’ve see Terry speak before, you know that his presentations are always lively, no matter the topic! If you haven’t seen him speak, what are you waiting for? More information on the conference can be found here:

ASQ World Conference.

P.P.S. Be sure to keep up with us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for more information about this and other upcoming events!

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NASCC 2012 is coming up and we thought for this blog, we’d talk about the benefits of attending a tradeshow and share some of our experiences.

Find Customers

First and foremost, the biggest reason to attend a tradeshow is to find potential customers. A tradeshow is a great opportunity to market specifically to the people in your field, most of who are paying to be there. They are looking for what you are selling.

Along this same line, many of the attendees of tradeshows are managers or upper level employees who have decision making power. If they like and need what you’re selling, there is a potential for an instant customer right there at your booth.

Give the Customer a Visual

For a steel related business, a tradeshow offers an opportunity to show a customer a physical product, where a phone call, email or postcard can’t. Maybe you’ve developed the latest software for steel fabrication management, or you’ve just released a new and improved portable beam splitter. Setting up shop at a tradeshow gives you the chance to demonstrate your product in real time. It gives the customer a visual and helps them make an informed decision about whether or not they want to choose you.

Check out the Competition

It’s no secret. Everyone manning a booth at a tradeshow takes a break to walk the floor, check out who else is exhibiting and pays a little extra attention to those companies offering a similar product. This gives you an idea of what other services similar to yours are being offered and might even spark some new ideas for your business to keep you competitive.

Atema’s Experience

We enjoy seeing familiar faces at tradeshows. It’s a great time for us to see clients whom we worked with and to learn how their Quality Management System (QMS) is running and growing. It’s also a chance for Atema to participate in Educational Sessions and learn what cutting edge technology is being used in the industry. Hope to see you in Grapevine Texas this year!

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We were recently asked: Does AWS have a D1.8 Certification?

The codes can get pretty confusing, especially when certification enters the picture, so here’s the deal, care of Atema welding specialists.

The Answer Is…

Yes, D1.8 has a supplemental Welder Qualification Test. It’s for welders who are going to weld bottom flange to column joints when a weld access hole is involved in the design of the joint. In short, it is specifically for restricted access welding.

D1.8 in the Field

D1.8 is a supplement to AWS D1.1 Structural Steel Welding Code and must be used in conjunction with it. I can see an eager inspector making this connection easily and reasonably, but sometimes the contract language does not specifically call for D1.8 compliance. We have now been tech witness/consultants in a few cases and have seen engineers not specifying correctly for seismic requirements.

Make sure your guys in the field are trained and aware of how to work around protected zones (grinding, fitting, attachment welds, etc.) and how to perform demand critical welds.

P.S. Atema teaches a two-day custom class on it because there’s a lot to it. Click here if you’re interested in finding out more about Atema classes.

P.P.S. In case you were wondering, the AISC Seismic Provisions and AWS D1.8 are supposed to be merged soon. Keep your eyes peeled for updates

 

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Many steel fabrication shops have asked about the requirements for calibrating weld machines to meet code requirements.

The Requirements
Where do the requirements to “calibrate your weld machines” come from? It is required with some structural steel quality management system certifications such as AISC Major & Simple Bridge certification.  However, per the Structural Welding Code AWS D1.1, there is no requirement.

In the Bridge Welding Code AWS D1.5 (clause 4), the requirement is not actually to calibrate your welding equipment, but to verify the accuracy of meters and devices used to record or display welding variables. This must be done every three months. Meters or other devices include load banks or wire speed meters.  It should be noted, equipment used to verify the accuracy of the meters/devices must be calibrated annually.

While the D1.5 Code doesn’t specifically require it, AISC Major or Simple certified fabrication shops are required to maintain records of these quarterly verification checks and demonstrate compliance by having the appropriate paperwork on file.

Things to consider
If you decide to perform your own amp and volt verification checks, the verifications need to be performed by a qualified person. Safety is paramount.

Almost all maintenance and quality departments are already overworked and adding another task to the list can result in cutting corners and costly mistakes. There are several service companies which perform calibrations and also perform a blow down of the unit’s internal workings like transformers, cables and electrical connections.

A record of verification is encouraged whether you are AISC certified or not, as proof this check was performed.

Bottom Line
If you are not specifically required to calibrate your welding machines, why do it? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Having a stable and accurate welding process will save you time and money, as well as give you peace of mind that you’re producing a quality product.

 

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With summer comes the start of many new projects and a great opportunity to take a second look at how your materials are being stored.  Avoid unnecessary costs by monitoring material storage conditions for best practices.

Paint, bolts, and welding consumables stored improperly will degrade and can become contaminated beyond use. Customer products coated with bad paint can fail and cost a company more than the price of repainting.  Improperly stored bolts and welding rods can create potentially unsafe connections.

If a customer audit reveals these conditions, it could cause a significant delay and cast doubt on the integrity and quality of material already supplied for the project.  Given the significant cost of paint and related components, welding consumables and high strength fasteners assemblies; monitoring how they are stored in comparison does not cost much. Controlling the storage conditions of your materials will keep you dollars ahead in the long run. 

 

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Centralize your quality records.  If your company has several inspectors, they may be keeping their individual records with them.  If inspection records are centralized in one office using a uniform filing method, time and costs can be saved by eliminating unnecessary searching. Anyone, supervisors and project managers, can then retrieve documents in a timely manner, rather than going through the respective inspectors' records and filing systems.

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Welcome to Atema’s new website!  We are pleased to have worked with Clique Studios here in Chicago to roll out an updated and more user friendly site.  Take some time to browse around.  We hope you enjoy it!

Those of you familiar with Atema might remember our previous collection of articles, Talk Quality. 
Anna Petroski and Terry Logan, principals of Atema, used Talk Quality as an online journal to discuss quality management, certification and other related issues.  Using real world examples and questions they came across in the field, they wrote articles aimed at proving those in the industry with a source of wisdom and advice.  We hope to do much the same on this new site.

The experience and knowledge of our staff extends far into the depths of the quality field. In addition, Atema has the advantage of working with clients all over the globe.  We’ve seen it all.  If there is a problem you’ve run into, you can be sure we have probably come across something similar and can help you solve it.

We hope this new version of Talk Quality can become a place you turn to for knowledge on a topic that interests you.  We also hope that you will reach out to us and let us know what questions you have.  You can find us on all the social networks or send us an email through the “Contact Us Today” button.  Of course, we always welcome phone calls.

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