The Lab Services group at EWI has been performing mechanical testing for the welding consumable industry for more than 15 years. Testing is done for R&D groups that are developing new wires, production departments that are qualifying production lots, and for qualification by certifying bodies like DNV (www.dnv.com), ABS (www.eagle.org) and CWB (www.cwbgroup.org).
Typically, certified testing is witnessed by a representative from one of the certifying bodies mentioned above. The representative will travel to EWI and spend anywhere from one day to three weeks to witness the welding and testing being performed at EWI. This is costly and requires tons of coordination and planning on EWI and our customer’s parts to get as much welding and testing witnessed in as short amount of time as possible.
We have been trying to convince our auditors to save some time and use a webcam. Just this week we finally got our chance! One of the auditors agreed to do the audit via webcam! We had a few minor technical issues at first, but one we got over those and the audit went off without a hitch. A small victory for us, a big cost savings for our customer!