Databases for welding procedures and welder qualifications

TWI Bulletin, September/October 1992

Bill Lucas is Head of TWI's Arc Welding Department, which is responsible for research on and application of arc welding technology, and production of microcomputer packages for welding engineers.

He actively supports research and development of arc welding processes and novel systems for control of welding. In 1987, he was awarded a DSc for his contribution to the development of arc welding processes. Current interests include promotion of European fabrication standards, the investigation of electromagnetic emissions and the production of information technology software for welding engineers.

Andy joined the Microcomputer Section of TWI's Arc Welding Department after working for the British Water Authority. He obtained a degree in Combined Engineering from Coventry 'Lanchester' Polytechnic. His studies also involved spending a year studying engineering at the IUT of St. Etienne in France.

His main responsibility at TWI is design, production and marketing of computer software for welding applications. Although principally involved in computer applications in welding, Andy also leads projects in other fields.

Current interests include use of computers to achieve Total Quality Management goals and integrated data management systems for welding.

Two new European standards concerning approval testing of welders and of welding procedures have recently been ratified by the European Committee for Standardisation, CEN. Bill Lucas and Andy Churley outline the benefits of computerising such welding related documentation using dedicated software.

The new standards are as follows:

This standard covers specifications, testing of welds, acceptance requirements and the range of approval. It is applicable for approval testing of welder performance in manual and semi-automatic operations.

This standard specifies the requirements for approval of a welding procedure, the procedure tests to be carried out and the range of approval.

Two programs which can be run on an IBM, or compatible, personal computer have been written specifically for handling the documentation associated with these new standards. WELDSPEC PLUS allows the welding procedure information to be stored whilst WELDERQUAL PLUS stores welder qualifications information.

Computerised documentation systems

• A computer is much smaller than a filing cabinet normally used for storing documents. Many filing cabinet's worth of information may be stored on a small, desktop computer.
• Computers can interrogate a data store in many different ways. With a paper storage system the information must be held in a specific manner that limits the number of ways in which it can be interrogated. Computer based information can be retrieved by specifying a number of different search parameters.
• The speed of information retrieval by computer is thousands of times greater than by hand. Computers are able to filter huge quantities of data through a set of constraints to find those which match all the requirements. This is usually undertaken in one of two ways. In the simplest system, each record is filtered through each set of constraints for conformance. Alternatively, all the records are filtered through the first constraint, then the records that were found to have conformed are filtered through the second constraint and so on.
• The format in which data are presented on computer is flexible. Computers are able to display information on a monitor in a wide range of presentations. Often the user can determine how the computer displays information. If, say, there are two users interrogating the same database, exactly the same information can be displayed to each user in a completely different manner. This can be taken one step further. Two users may interrogate the same database but often they are looking for different information. It is possible for a database management system to display only the information that is relevant to each user.
• The print-out format of the information generated is also flexible on computer. Users can obtain paper copies in a format which is more familiar to them.
• Creation of a document is often much quicker on a computer. New records can be created simply by editing existing records, whilst leaving the originals unchanged.
• Other features can be added to a computer database management system, such as a sketching tool in order to include drawings with the record in the system.
• Data from other databases can be accessed by computers. Some data may be common to several databases. This information can be read into another database if the way in which the data are stored on computer disk is recognisable by another application.

These features of computer systems have now been exploited in handling documentation in the welding industry. Undoubtedly, the two major application areas are:

WELDSPEC PLUS and WELDERQUAL PLUS have been designed specifically to meet these requirements.

WELDSPEC PLUS

WELDSPEC PLUS allows the documentation associated with welding procedures to be stored, updated and retrieved. The database system enables not only welding procedure specifications (WPS) and procedure qualification records (PQR) to be stored, but can also print summaries of welding procedures or welding worksheets for the shop floor. The program has two main modes of use:

Search results may be presented as a list of catalogue numbers from which original paper documents can be traced with ease. Records requested by the engineer can be displayed on the screen, see Fig.1, or printed as a hard copy, see Fig.2. The user can obtain a register for all welding procedures in the database, sorted by search parameters. Worksheets can readily be produced containing welding procedure details, but without unnecessary qualification and test data. A multiple printout function is also available. The program also features:

• 'Wild card' searches;
• Keyword storage in the function keys
• A configuration routine for setting up hardware, passwords, language, and datafiles;
• Back-up routines.

Thus, WELDSPEC PLUS allows automated storage of welding procedure information, so that the welding engineer no longer needs to search manually through a large number of welding procedures to check whether the company has a suitable qualified procedure available.

WELDERQUAL PLUS

WELDERQUAL PLUS is a similar database management system designed to store welder qualification certificates. The welding engineer, having entered details of all the qualification data, can keep track of welders to ensure that:

• Qualifications due for renewal are found quickly and easily, to avoid them lapsing;
• Suitably qualified welders are assigned to perform specific types of welds;
• Unnecessary qualification tests are no longer carried out, since welders holding relevant qualifications can quickly be identified.

WELDERQUAL PLUS contains all the features of WELDSPEC PLUS described above, as well as a comprehensive data search facility to identify welders due for qualification renewal. Figures 3 and 4 show the type of information that can be stored in WELDERQUAL PLUS.

In conclusion

WELDSPEC PLUS and WELDERQUAL PLUS were developed to enable companies to manage documentation associated with procedure approvals and welder qualifications in the most effective manner. The software helps to eliminate unnecessary procedure approval and welder qualification tests.

Although the EN versions of WELDSPEC PLUS and WELDERQUAL PLUS have been described here, the software can accommodate most of the major European and US standards and there are English and French language versions available; a German language version of the two programs will be available shortly. The software is marketed worldwide through seven national agencies and almost 1000 copies have been sold so far, making the programs leaders in welding engineering software.

The software will be demonstrated at the forthcoming European Standards Workshop at Abington on 13 October and 5 November 1992. TWI is also hosting a European Software Day on 11 November 1992.