Guiding principles for Inspectors

          I wrote a brief article about a month ago where I posited the idea that contractors who have a negative view of third-party, QA inspectors have made an error in judgement with regard to their own long self-interest. One of my very astute readers pointed out the fact that many contractors have a negative view of third-party inspections due to bad experiences with inspectors on previous projects. That was an excellent and accurate observation and I wish to thank the reader for making that point, which is the inspiration for this article.

            With power and authority comes great responsibility. Decisions made by inspectors can have a significant impact on project budgets and deadlines, so it is a moral obligation that inspectors make calls and reject things that are truly in error and not within the parameters of the contract documents, specifications and applicable codes.

            I will make a few suggestions of guiding principles that should be part of a set of guiding ethical principles in performing welding inspection.

• Call the Code, not your opinions or personal preferences. No one hired you for your opinion. Any call an inspector makes, he or she should and must be able to source, book, chapter and verse.
• Leave personal feeling and emotions out of your decision-making process. Any like or dislike for any given individual or organization should be left at home and not enter into the decision of whether to accept or reject a weld. The code reads the same whether you love or hate the contractors involved.
• Leave your ego out of it. If you make a call and reject something and the engineer accepts it, let it go. You did your job and brought the item in question to the attention of the engineer for evaluation. Its not about winning, its about letting the best possible solution evolve. Truth, not having your ego validated should be the governing factor.
• Always treat others as though they may know something you don’t. There may be a reason things were done a certain way. Ask more questions, make fewer statements in having an honest and open discussion. Again, the goal is to arrive at the best possible solution, not win an argument.

            Ayn Rand once said, in her epic novel Atlas Shrugged that, “there are no conflicts among rational people.” Rand defined rational as not seeking the unearned, not trying to fake or alter the facts of reality in any way. There is nothing to be gained in simply rejecting work for the mere sake of doing so. Any authoritarian inspector on a power trip, who merely takes pleasure in making other’s jobs tougher for the mere sport of it are truly misguided individuals who would do well to reconsider the source of their resentment. Such persons only serve to give all inspectors a bad name.

            Inspectors who call above and beyond the parameters of the acceptance criteria spelled out in the codes should also pause and consider the fact that they could well be held legally and financially liable for that decision. I know of a specific instance where just such a situation occurred.

            For obvious reasons of legality and decorum, I will omit names, dates and locations and confine this to the most general terms. I was involved on a pipeline project many years ago where the Head Inspector for the Energy company forced the contractor to make repairs to a number of welds that were demonstrably and provably within the parameters of the API 1104 Pipeline welding code, often being so brazen as to say things like, “I don’t care! I don’t like it! Make him fix it!”

            Long story short, the Contractor went back on the Energy company with a large bill for all the work that the contractor was forced to do above and beyond what was called out in the job contracts. Both the Energy Company and the Contractor wound up in a courtroom with significant sums of money at stake. It is my understanding that both the Energy company and the individual inspector were sued and were held liable for the damages. The inspector for the energy company was a new inspector, only having recently attained his CWI and should likely not have been entrusted with such a responsibility for his first real inspection job. Also worth noting is the fact that this particular inspector had a well-deserved reputation for being a rude, combative and belligerent authoritarian who would not tolerate even being questioned by other inspectors, most all of whom had significantly more industry experience than he. He paid dearly for the privilege.

            I am so glad I was privy to that situation for the educational value I received from it. I had no way of knowing at the time, but the anecdote described above was tremendously instructive and inspired me to be a better inspector. When I made the transition to full-time inspections, I made a commitment to myself and to all I work with and for, that I would neve be one of those inspectors that I hated dealing with when I was welding. Those who simply seek power for power’s sake.

            Tell me what you think. Please leave a comment or add to the discussion as you see fit. I don’t claim or have all the answers or even any answers. I merely wish to suggest ideas for your consideration with these writings in hopes of inspiring further thought and discussion.

            And always remember, your work is your signature. What do you want to say with yours?

Glenn Howard Weidman