Certification and the AWS

Every American welder hears about AWS in the first year: the AWS codes, the AWS certified welder card, the CWI who inspects. Devon has welded to AWS codes for three years and been inspected by Lucia, a CWI, but he has never looked at the system as a whole. In this lesson Elena explains what the American Welding Society certifies, how it differs from company certification programs such as AISC's, and what each means for a welder's career. She ends the class by handing round Hartwell's AISC certificate and Lucia's CWI card.

What AWS is

The American Welding Society is a non-profit professional society that writes many of the welding codes and standards used in the United States, through committees accredited by ANSI, and runs certification programs for people: Certified Welding Inspector, Certified Associate Welding Inspector, Senior Certified Welding Inspector, Certified Welding Supervisor, Certified Welding Engineer, Certified Welding Educator, and the Certified Welder program run through accredited test facilities. It also has a Certified Welding Fabricator program for companies. AWS publishes the D1 structural codes, the A5 filler metal specifications, the welding symbol standard and many others, and it runs training and conferences.

The important point is that, in the United States, AWS certifies people rather than companies for structural work, and no national law requires a structural fabricator to hold company certification. Instead, building codes and owners rely on other means. Under the International Building Code, shop fabrication of structural steel needs special inspection unless the fabricator is approved by the building official, and approval is often granted to fabricators certified under the AISC certification program, which audits a company's quality system against AISC's standard for certification programs. State transportation departments usually require AISC bridge certification for bridge fabricators.

Company certification: AISC and AWS

The AISC program certifies building fabricators, bridge fabricators and erectors in several categories, with endorsements such as fracture-critical work and coatings. A certified company must have a documented quality management system covering contract review, document control, purchasing and material traceability, inspection and testing, control of nonconforming product, corrective and preventive action, calibration of equipment, training, and internal audits, and it must show that its welding is done to the code with written procedures and qualified welders and inspectors. Independent auditors check the documents, then visit the plant, then come back on a regular cycle. AWS's Certified Welding Fabricator program is a similar company scheme focused on welding.

Getting certified starts with an online application, then an extended application with the quality manual and other documents, an eligibility review, a documentation audit and a site audit at which the auditor checks that the system works as written. Deficiencies are raised as corrective action requests that must be closed before the certificate is issued. Once certified, the company is audited on a regular cycle and must close any new findings within set times; serious failures can lead to suspension. The whole process typically takes many months.

Welder qualification and AWS certification

Under D1.1 and Section IX, the employer qualifies its own welders. The AWS Certified Welder program gives a welder a portable credential: the welder tests at an AWS Accredited Test Facility to a standard test, and the result is recorded by AWS and can be accepted by employers whose codes allow it. To keep the certification, the welder must submit maintenance forms at set intervals showing continued work with the process. Many employers still test every new hire themselves, because the code makes the employer responsible for its welders' qualifications, but an AWS certification shows a hiring foreman what the welder has proved.

When a welder changes employers, the new employer can accept a previous employer's qualification records under Section IX if they are properly documented and continuity can be shown, or an AWS certification if its program allows. Hartwell's office checks each new hire's records and continuity, and Lucia decides whether a test is needed before they weld any code work.

Supervisors, engineers and other roles

AWS certifies supervisors and engineers as individuals: the Certified Welding Supervisor program covers people who direct welding work and manage welding quality and productivity, and the Certified Welding Engineer program covers welding engineering knowledge. Neither is required by D1.1, which places responsibility on the contractor and the engineer, but owners and AISC auditors look for qualified people in those roles. Elena is a licensed professional engineer and a Certified Welding Engineer; Glen is a Certified Welding Supervisor.

Other certifications appear on the job too. Pressure equipment work needs the jurisdiction's certificate of authorization and the procedure registrations and pressure welder records discussed in lesson 3. Pipeline work needs qualifications under the pipeline code, held by the pipeline company. Aluminum and rebar have their own standards. A welder's wallet can hold several cards from several schemes, and each one covers only what it says.

Keeping certification current

Certification is a continuous effort. Procedures must be kept current as processes, consumables and codes change; welders must be retested before qualifications expire; key people must stay in place or be replaced; records must be complete; findings must be closed. Hartwell keeps a single schedule that shows every due date in the system, and Glen reviews it at the Monday production meeting.

# Certification due-date schedule: what is due in the next 90 days?
from datetime import date
today = date(2026, 11, 2)
items = [
    # item, owner, due date
    ('Welder retest: R. Haldane, SMAW (lapsed)', 'Lucia', date(2026, 11, 20)),
    ('Continuity check: M. Kowalchuk, GMAW', 'Lucia', date(2026, 12, 8)),
    ('AISC annual audit', 'Glen', date(2026, 12, 3)),
    ('WPS revision for new flux-cored wire', 'Elena', date(2026, 10, 30)),
    ('Calibration: current and voltage meters', 'Lucia', date(2026, 11, 10)),
    ('CWI renewal: L. Ferreira (year 6)', 'Lucia', date(2027, 1, 31)),
    ('ASME certificate renewal survey', 'Elena', date(2027, 6, 12)),
]
horizon = 90
for item, owner, due in sorted(items, key=lambda x: x[2]):
    days = (due - today).days
    if days < 0:
        flag = f'OVERDUE by {-days} days'
    elif days <= horizon:
        flag = f'due in {days} days'
    else:
        continue
    print(f"{due}  {item:<46} {owner:<8} {flag}")

2026-10-30  WPS revision for new flux-cored wire           Elena    OVERDUE by 3 days
2026-11-10  Calibration: current and voltage meters        Lucia    due in 8 days
2026-11-20  Welder retest: R. Haldane, SMAW (lapsed)       Lucia    due in 18 days
2026-12-03  AISC annual audit                              Glen     due in 31 days
2026-12-08  Continuity check: M. Kowalchuk, GMAW           Lucia    due in 36 days
2027-01-31  CWI renewal: L. Ferreira (year 6)              Lucia    due in 90 days

The schedule picks out what falls in the next three months and flags the procedure revision for the new flux-cored wire as overdue. Elena had written it but not yet sent it for approval, and the wire had already arrived in the stores. Glen holds the wire in quarantine until the revision is approved, which takes four days. The audit next month would have found the wire in use under an old procedure; the schedule found it first.

Recognition across borders

Canadian and American systems meet often. American fabricators supply steel to Canadian jobs and the reverse, and inspectors cross the border. A steel fabricator supplying a Canadian building must normally be certified by the CWB to CSA W47.1, because Canadian building codes require it, so American shops that bid on Canadian work often hold CWB certification as well as AISC certification. D1.1 accepts CSA W178.2 Level 2 and 3 inspectors, which helps on cross-border jobs. Elena keeps a comparison table of the two codes taped inside her cupboard door.

What certification means for a welder

For Devon, the American system means three things. His qualifications are written records held by Hartwell, and any new employer will ask to see them or test him again. They lapse if he stops using a process, so he must keep welding or retest. And they open doors: a welder with current qualifications in all positions, plus pressure qualifications and perhaps an AWS certification, is welcome in most shops. Elena's last advice is to keep copies of every test record and card, because a welder's history is worth as much as the welder's hands.

The audit visit

An AISC audit at Hartwell follows a pattern Glen knows well. The auditor arrives, meets Glen and Elena, and reviews the quality manual and any changes since the last visit. She picks jobs and traces them: the contract review, the drawings and their revisions, the purchase orders and mill certificates for the steel, the welding procedures, the welders' qualifications, the inspection records and the final release. She walks the shop to see that what the manual describes is what happens, checks calibration labels on gauges and meters, looks at how nonconforming material is marked and held, and asks people on the floor how they would handle a problem. At the end she reviews her findings with Glen, and any that need correction are written up as corrective action requests with a date by which they must be closed.

Auditors are not looking for perfection; they are looking for a system that finds and fixes its own problems. A shop that has found a lapse itself, recorded it and corrected it, with the cause understood, usually gets credit for a working system. A shop that hides problems, or whose records do not match what is on the floor, gets findings that are much harder to close, because the auditor can no longer trust the records.

The quality manual

Behind every certification is a quality manual, the shop's own description of how it controls its work. It names the people responsible and their authority, describes how contracts and drawings are reviewed and controlled, how material is bought, received, identified and traced, how procedures and welders are qualified and controlled, how welding and inspection are done and recorded, how nonconforming work is identified, held and dispositioned, how equipment is calibrated, how people are trained and how records are kept. It also says how the shop audits itself and how management reviews the results. The manual is not a document to impress auditors; it is the shop's rule book, and if the shop does not follow it, the certification means nothing.

Devon reads Hartwell's manual for the first time in this course. Much of it describes things he already does without thinking, such as marking his welder number on every joint and returning electrodes to the oven at break. Seeing them written down, with the reason and the person responsible, makes him understand that his habits are part of a system that lets a customer trust a weld he made months ago.

What certification costs and what it gives

Certification costs money: fees, the time of key people, procedure tests, welder tests, calibration, record keeping and the audits themselves. It gives a shop access to work it could not otherwise bid on, because owners and building codes require it. It also gives the shop a discipline that reduces repairs, rework and disputes, and it gives customers a reason to trust the shop's records without inspecting everything themselves. Glen's view, after twenty years, is that a well-run certification pays for itself in the repairs it prevents, and that the shops that complain most about it are usually the ones that run it worst.

When certification is at risk

Certification can be suspended or withdrawn. The usual reasons are serious audit findings that are not corrected in time, loss of a required person without replacement, welding by unqualified welders or to procedures that were never approved, falsified records, or unpaid fees. A suspended company may not weld work that requires the certification until it is restored, and work already done during a lapse may have to be reinspected or even replaced. For a shop like Hartwell, losing certification in the middle of the Riverside job would stop the bridge, so Glen treats every finding as urgent.

Welders are affected too. A welder whose qualification is withdrawn because of falsified test records, or who welds under another welder's identification, can lose more than a job: certifiers share information, and a welder's record follows them. Elena's last point in this section is plain: the system works only because people tell the truth in it, and the people who weaken it hurt every honest welder who depends on it.