The certificate package for a heat treated job, built from your records for your quality manager to sign.

The proof that a job ran correctly is spread across the building. The order and the print say what was wanted. The load record shows the furnace, the cycle and the load it rode in. The floor or lab sheets hold the hardness and case depth. Somebody reads all of that together and types the certificate, and what has to be on it changes from one customer to the next.

For the test, AI reads copies of those records and drafts the package in your own layout: customer part and lot, material and process as the order named them, a reference to the furnace load and cycle record, hardness and case depth as recorded, the customer's stated requirement beside each, and a list of what is missing. Each result is carried over exactly as written, with no pass or fail beside it, and that call belongs to your quality manager.

The requirement can start far from your front door. California's Division of the State Architect treats heat treatment and galvanizing as secondary processing of anchor bolts on the projects it oversees. Its IR 17-11 has the supplier's shipment paperwork carry a heat treat certification where strength comes from heat treatment, along with hardness, tensile and proof load results, the mill's heat number and the title and signature of the responsible person. Bolts that can't be identified by marking or traced to that paperwork get sampled and tested, or pulled off the site. A shop heat treating for that bolt maker may never read the rule, so the draft keeps each customer's stated requirement beside each item.

A lot number has to connect three things. One automotive supplier's posted heat treat specification wants heat treat lot identification tied to incoming material lots, unique process parameters and finished product evaluation, and it bars mixing mill heats that need different cycles. It has the checker initial and date the face of a recording chart, and has loading rate or cycle time logged with the time, date and checker's initials. So the draft doesn't stop at a load number. It shows which load record the job points to and where the chain from the customer's lot to the test sheet breaks.

A Rockwell number comes with conditions. ASTM E18, the Rockwell test method for metallic materials, covers regular and superficial scales. Its current public listing names annexes on minimum test piece thickness and on corrections for convex cylindrical surfaces, sends portable machines that can only be verified indirectly to E110, and cautions that a test at one spot may not represent the whole part. The automotive specification above has the scale follow the print, allows another only with its metallurgist's approval, and has testers checked at least daily against a standard block. The draft carries the scale, location and method your sheet records and lists any the order named that the sheet left blank.

One number can't speak for the whole part. A 2015 Gear Technology feature, built on questions industry experts suggested buyers ask, says most shops certify with hardness information, that hardness does not guarantee microstructure, and that microstructure or tensile work may need an outside accredited lab. A Federal Highway Administration report that same year, on anchor rods removed from the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, found properties that varied between surface and core, attributed that to improper heat treatment, and said the results could be judged nonconforming depending on how the ASTM standards are read. Case depth has habits of its own: the same automotive specification reads depth to the center of the indent and wants induction patterns checked in both transverse and longitudinal sections. The package shows what was tested and how. It doesn't decide what the tests prove.

A signed cert is a record someone will ask for. A 2020 Thermal Processing column on reviewing heat treat certifications says what the buyer feels it is paying for is a certification reflecting conforming work. It wants the person checking to hold a documented training record, the review marked by a dated stamp, written date, electronic signature or PDF stamp, and the record retrievable for a purchaser or auditor. One automotive supplier asks that safety and function records be kept for the life of the product, spare parts included, plus 15 years, and the specification above expects a recall procedure when a tester turns out to be out of calibration or a check was missed. Your reviewer, usually the quality manager, checks that the right load and lot were found, every missing item is real and no reading was called good or bad. This page summarizes public documents and is not legal or engineering advice.

Once your reviewer says yes, drafting moves to live jobs for about 30 days, early enough that a missing test sheet can still be found before the truck leaves.

No package goes out until your quality manager has corrected it, read every result and signed. The comparison keeps running through that month, and a second job would be priced and decided on its own.