The job market continues to change. Highly skilled and specialized workers are in demand. Traditional education cannot meet all the needs to create specialty skill workers. Certification provides up-to-date training and development while promoting individual or professional skills and knowledge in a focused manner. Certification as a way of continuing professional eduction can also be more cost effective.

This manual has been prepared for use as a reference materials for their day to day inspection business and for assistance in the training of new inspectors. This is also a supplement to applicable Standards, such as ASTM, ACI, AWS, etc. as well as building codes, such as UBC, SBC, etc.; thus, any references made in this manual reflects to the applicable code and/or standard test method. Inspection is the observation of construction for conformance with the approved design documents. It shall not be relied upon by others as guarantee or acceptance of work, nor shall it in any manner relieve any contractor or other party from their obligations and responsibilities under the construction contract, or generally accepted industry custom, or building codes and standards. Included in this manual are materials for other testing and inspection, for which there are currently no special training program or certifications available or offered. H. John Parsaie, Ph.D. Seattle, Washington

This report, FEMA-353 - Recommended Specifications and Quality Assurance Guidelines for Steel Moment-Frame Construction for Seismic Applications has been prepared by the SAC Joint Venture, under contract to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to indicate those standards of workmanship for structural steel fabrication and erection deemed necessary to achieve reliably the design performance objectives contained in the set of companion publications prepared under this same contract: FEMA-350 - Recommended Seismic Design Criteria for New Steel Moment-Frame Buildings, which provides recommended criteria, supplemental to FEMA-302, 1997 NEHRP Recommended Provisions for Seismic Regulations for New Buildings and Other Structures, for the design and construction of steel moment-frame buildings and provides alternative performance-based design criteria; FEMA-351 - Recommended Seismic Evaluation and Upgrade Criteria for Existing Welded Steel Moment-Frame Buildings, which provides recommended methods to evaluate the probable performance of existing steel moment-frame buildings in future earthquakes and to retrofit these buildings for improved performance; and FEMA-352 - Recommended Postearthquake Evaluation and Repair Criteria for Welded, Steel Moment-Frame Buildings, which provides recommendations for performing postearthquake inspections to detect damage in steel moment-frame buildings following an earthquake, evaluating the damaged buildings to determine their safety in the postearthquake environment, and repairing damaged buildings. The recommended design criteria contained in these three companion reports are based on the material and workmanship standards contained in this document, which also includes discussion of the basis for the quality control and quality assurance criteria contained in the recommended specifications.

This standard defines the requirements and program for the American Welding Society to certify welding inspectors. The certification of visual welding inspectors requires documentaiton of experience, satisfactory completion of an examination, and proof of visual acuity. The examination tests the inspector's knowledge of welding processes, welding procedures, destructive tests, terms, definitions, symbols, reports, safety, and responsibilities.