clause 18 · D1.1:2025 6.3.3Handover tomorrow. Still chasing records?
A welding turnover package is the set of quality records a fabricator hands over when a job closes: procedures, welder qualifications, material and consumable certificates, inspection reports and repair history. Together they show each weld was made as specified. Most shops still assemble it after the last weld.
What goes into a turnover package
The contract or the client’s quality plan sets the exact contents. ISO 3834-2:2021 clause 18 gives the most complete general list: quality records shall include, when applicable, the items below. Each one answers a different question an auditor will ask.
Record (ISO 3834-2 clause 18) | The question it answers |
|---|---|
| Requirement or technical review | Did the shop confirm it could meet the specification before cutting steel? |
| Material inspection documents | Is the plate and pipe what the drawing called for? |
| Welding consumable inspection documents | Which filler metal went in, and does its certificate match? |
| Welding procedure specifications | Which approved procedure governed each joint? |
| Welding procedure qualification records | What test supports that procedure? |
| Welder or operator qualification documents | Was the person holding the torch qualified for this process and range? |
| Equipment maintenance records | Was the machine in a known state? |
| Production plan | In what order, and where, was the work done? |
| NDT personnel documents | Who was certified to examine the welds? |
| Heat treatment specification and records | If PWHT applied, what cycle did the part actually see? |
| NDT and destructive test procedures and reports | How was acceptance decided, and what was found? |
| Dimensional reports | Does the assembly match the drawing? |
| Repair records and non-conformance reports | What was rejected, how was it fixed, and was it re-examined? |
The standard closes the list with “other documents, if required” and sets retention: quality records shall be kept for a minimum of five years when no other requirement is specified. Under AWS D1.1:2025 6.3.3, qualification test records are kept by the manufacturer or Contractor and made available to those authorized to examine them.
Why it gets built in audit week
Every record in the table exists somewhere during the job. The problem is the links between them. The weld map lives on the drawing, the procedures in a library, the qualifications in a binder, the mill certificates in someone’s inbox, and the NDT reports in a subcontractor’s PDF. Which welder made weld 14, under which procedure, with which filler lot, usually sits on a paper traveler, if it was written down at all.
- Links are recorded late. When the connection between a weld and its evidence is reconstructed at the end, gaps are found at the end.
- The people who knew have moved on. By handover the crew is on the next job and the foreman’s memory is the index.
- A missing record looks like a missing weld. An auditor cannot tell the difference between work that was never checked and a report that was never filed.
“I loved going into ASME PV fabricators and asking for continuity reports on their welders. You first get that blank stare... they would usually provide you a stack of papers that didn’t even pertain to the welder.”
Retired gas-transmission inspector, 37 years, writing on the AWS forum
Late assembly also moves discovery past the signature. One QC reviewer described checking another contractor’s final package on a piping job:
“3 welders on the project, 2 of which welded the complete project out of thickness compliance to the WPQ... this has been caught after the fact of signing a CCC.”
QC reviewer, piping, Eng-Tips forum, July 2022
Assembling it as the job runs
A package that assembles itself is a package whose links are captured at the moment the work happens. The method does not depend on any particular software:
- Give every weld an identity. Number each joint on the weld map before production starts, so every later record has something to attach to.
- Record the link at the weld, not at the desk. Welder, procedure, filler lot and date belong to the weld ID on the day it is made.
- Attach evidence as it arrives. NDT results, dimensional checks and repair records are filed against the weld ID, not against the job folder.
- Gate each weld on completeness. A weld with no procedure, no current qualification or no required examination shows as open while it can still be fixed.
- Treat the package as an output. When every weld is complete, the package is a report over the job, not a week of copying.
Five questions before you sign the handover
These are workflow prompts for a final review, not an exhaustive inspection checklist. For every weld on the weld map:
- Is there an approved procedure that covers this joint?
- Was the welder’s qualification current on the date the weld was made?
- Is the base metal heat and the filler lot recorded?
- Is every examination the specification requires present and accepted?
- If the weld was repaired, is the repair closed and re-examined?
How Clause5 handles it
Completeness-gated auto-assembly builds the QC turnover package as the work happens, not the week the auditor lands. Welds, procedures, qualifications, traceability and inspections sit in one chain, and each sealed document carries a QR code that resolves on the public verify page. Clause5 is in private beta; invited beta teams get Professional access at no charge as workflows become available.
For reference only. Verify against the contract documents and the client's quality plan before assembling a handover package.
Clause5 is WPS software for fabrication shops: welding documentation with every value cited to the governing clause. The name comes from AWS D1.1 Clause 5, the prequalification section of the structural welding code, and the software is not that section of the code.
Frequently Asked Questions
A welding turnover package is the collection of quality records a fabricator delivers to the client when a job closes. It typically holds the welding procedure specifications and the qualification records behind them, the welder and welding operator qualifications, material and welding consumable certificates, inspection and test reports, dimensional reports, and records of repairs and non-conformances. Some projects call it a quality dossier. The exact contents come from the contract or the client's quality plan rather than from a single code. Its purpose is practical: it lets someone who was never in the shop, such as an owner's inspector or a future maintenance engineer, confirm from documents alone that each weld was made by a qualified person, to an approved procedure, from identified material, and examined as specified.
ISO 3834-2:2021 clause 18 requires quality records to be retained for a minimum period of five years in the absence of any other specified requirements. Where no other retention requirement is specified, the minimum is five years. A contract, a product standard, a regulator or the client's specification can require a longer period, and structures with long service lives often do. Before disposing of anything, check the governing documents for the job and your own quality manual, and store the records in a form that will still be readable and findable at the end of the period. A package kept as scattered files on personal drives is technically retained but practically lost once the people who knew where each file lived have moved on to other jobs.
Under AWS D1.1:2025 clause 6.2.2.2, each manufacturer or Contractor is responsible for the qualification of its welders, welding operators and tack welders, whether the qualification test is conducted by the manufacturer, the Contractor or an independent testing agency. Hiring a test lab does not move that responsibility. Clause 6.3.3 adds that records of the test results shall be kept by the manufacturer or Contractor and made available to those authorized to examine them. In practice, the fabricator needs to be able to produce the qualification record for any welder whose work appears in the turnover package, and to show that the qualification was in effect on the dates that welder worked on the job.
Yes, and it is the most reliable way to avoid audit-week reconstruction. The requirement is that every weld has an identity from the start, usually a number on the weld map, and that the welder, the procedure, the filler lot and the date are recorded against that number when the weld is made. Examination results, dimensional checks and repair records are then filed against the same number as they arrive. With that structure, the package is a report generated over records that already exist, and the final review becomes a completeness check: which welds still lack a procedure, a current qualification, traceable material or a required examination. Gaps found during the job can still be fixed. Gaps found at handover usually cannot.
Record lists from ISO 3834-2:2021 and AWS D1.1/D1.1M:2025. Not affiliated with ISO or AWS.