African Fusion July 2023

SAIW News: ISO 3834 and mining

ISO 3834, the PER and the safety African Fusion talks to SAIW’s Renier Mostert, ISO 3834 Company Certification manager, about the ongoing success of the SAIW’s ISO 3834 Welding Fabricators Certification scheme; and its extended role in driving up weld quality and safety standards in the power, petrochemical and, more recently, mining industries of Southern Africa.

I SO 3834 certification was first intro duced into South Africa in 2008, with DB Thermal becoming the first company to be certified according to the SAIW’s ISO 3834 Welding Fabricators Certification Scheme in that year. “As the local represen tative of the IIW, the SAIW is the custodian of weld quality for the Southern African region, and ISO 3834 is the ideal scheme to help companies to implement proper weld quality management systems into their operations,” says Renier Mostert, manager for ISO 3834 Company Certifica tion at the SAIW. “The scheme has since gone from strength to strength, and we now have 288 South Africa companies certified accord ing to our scheme. ISO 3834 certification has become a requirement for fabrication contractors bidding on contracts in the power industry and in the chemical and petrochemical industries. SAIW Certifica tion also recently certified a company in Lesotho under our ISO 17021 certification as Lesotho falls outside our IIW scope of certification.,” he adds. “For centuries, welding was left to skilled welders, with no one on a higher management level taking the necessary re sponsibility required by construction codes

Welding fabricators and OEMs are becoming certified to ISO 3834 for the welding that they do on products for mining.

ISO 3834: Quality Requirements for fusion welding of metallic materials specifies the quality requirements for how welding should be done in workshops and for onsite field installations and maintenance. “This ensures that quality is built into a fabricated product from the beginning and throughout construction. It helps welders to produce quality welds, preventing de fects and poor-quality welds from arising in the first place,” Mostert informs African Fusion . “ISO 3834 Certification tells customers and users of fabricated equipment that the manufacturer has agreed to comply with all the requirements necessary to ensure the product or component won’t fail dur ing service because of insufficient built-in quality. This quality comes from every stage and every welding related process involved in the manufacturing phase, which is far better than trying to inspect quality into the component during the inspection phase after the manufacturing has been completed,” he explains. Statutory requirements and the PER From a legal standpoint in South Africa, ‘SANS 347: Categorization and conformity assessment criteria for all pressure equip-

to ensure the welding was performed to the proper safety and quality requirements. “After non-destructive testing (NDT) following welding was completed, weld ing defects were often found and located, which would then require repair work, which typically costs three to five times more than the initial cost of manufacture.

Part 3 of ISO 3834 (ISO 3834-3) defines the standard quality requirements for welding and covers manufacturers of steel structures, non-critical piping, and mining equipment, for example.

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July 2023

AFRICAN FUSION