According to ISO/IEC 17024 clause 9.4.8.e) “The certificates shall contain the scope of the certification including, if applicable, validity conditions and limitations”.
According to EN ISO 9606-1: 2017 clause 9.1 “ The welder’s certificate needs to be confirmed every 6 months otherwise the certificate(s) become(s) invalid.” and clause 9.2 “The qualifications of a welder for a process shall be confirmed every 6 months by the person responsible for welding activities or examiner/examining body. This is confirming that the welder has worked within the range of qualification and extends the validity of the qualification for a further 6-month period.”
There are two different opinions determined among our assessors while interpreting EN ISO 9606-1: 2017 clause 9.1 and 9.2.
One group claims that “The CAB must confirm welder’s certificate/qualification of a welder by conducting surveillance activity every 6 months.”
The other group claims that “The confirmation of qualification of a welder does not have to be performed by the CAB. Employer can also perform the confirmation of qualification of a welder.” However, this should be specified in the certificate prepared by CAB under ISO/IEC 17024 clause 9.4.8.
- What is the implementation of this issue in your country?
- Is it the responsibility of the CAB or the employer to confirm the welder’s certificate every 6 months?
September 2019
It is the responsibility of the employer to validate welder qualifications, any scheme based on ISO 9606-1 should identify these validation activities and the activities to be carried out by the Certification Body/Notified Body, if any. ABs should only accept schemes for accreditation where such responsibilities are clearly stated.
Note: Set up an EA CC TF (including at least EWF), to clarify if the wording in ISO 9606-1 is sufficiently clear to be used in ISO 17024 accredited certification.
ISO 9606-1 contains not only competence criteria for welders and examinations contents and arrangements but also elements typical of the owners´ certification scheme, like initial validity, confirmation, revalidation etc.
For some of these steps (validity process) third party certification is used, but for others alternatives are given (cl. 9.2. “by the person responsible for welding’s activities or by the certification body “) or there even are requirements for the employer of the persons (cl. 9.3 c) ii) and iii)) that logically has nothing to do with third party certification and are out of the range of the accreditation.
It should be noted that a TFG is now underway at the EA CC to identify aspects of this standard that might be not in line with third party certification ISO 17024.