Certificates of conformance and material certs, matched to the lots that actually shipped.

The requirement hides in the order: a note on the PO, a clause in the plant's terms, or a standing rule for one account. Someone has to find which lines need paper, look up the lot that was really picked, pull the manufacturer's or importer's report for that lot, check that it covers the part, grade, size and coating ordered, and put your own C of C on top.

For the test, AI reads copies of those orders, pick tickets and packing lists beside the cert files you kept, and drafts the cert packet for each shipment: every line that needed paper, the lot shipped, the supplier document matched to it, what was checked, and a draft C of C for your signer. A line it can't match goes back to your team with the reason. Nothing ships on a draft.

The Fastener Quality Act covers only part of your shelf. Its definition reaches metal screws, nuts, bolts and studs of 1/4 inch or 6 mm and up, plus load-indicating washers, that are through-hardened or sold to a standard calling for it, and grade marked or sold to a standard requiring the mark. It leaves out ASTM A307 Grade A, parts of an assembly, parts made to a customer's proprietary standard, parts made under a quality system the Act accepts, such as one meeting ISO 9001, and, when ordered as spares or replacements, parts in a package of 75 or fewer. So the plant's PO, more often than the law, decides which lines need paper, and the draft names the rule it applied to each.

A lot is one heat through one process. The Act defines a lot as fasteners of one part number made by the same process from the same coil or heat of metal. Its record of conformance for each lot names the maker, the lot number, the dimensions, thread form and class of fit, the standard with its revision, the chemistry and grade, the coating and its standard, and the test results or a summary. Manufacturers and importers keep that record for five years, on paper or electronically, and must share it on request with a distributor that bought the fasteners. The draft checks each of those items against the order line, and when the report in your file covers a different lot from the one picked, it says so instead of attaching it.

Your packet speaks for what the supplier said. The Act makes it unlawful for a manufacturer or a distributor to knowingly misrepresent or falsify a lot's record of conformance, its markings or the maker's insignia, and a fastener whose standard calls for an insignia can't be sold unless that insignia sits on the Fastener Insignia Register at the USPTO, as a trademark or an assigned code, recorded five years at a time. ISO 16228 sorts fastener paper with the same care: a declaration of compliance is type F2.1, and F2.2, F3.1 and F3.2 are test reports, issued by the maker or the distributor when the buyer asks at the time of the order. The draft never retypes a supplier's report; it quotes it, names its type, and keeps your C of C within what it supports.

Fittings carry less on their face. A forged socket-weld or threaded fitting made to ASME B16.11 is marked with the maker's name or trademark, the ASTM material, a WP or B16 conformance symbol and a pressure class from 2000 to 9000, and marks can be left off, last first, when the fitting is too small to hold them all. MSS SP-25, the most widely used marking standard for valves, fittings, flanges and unions, calls for a melt designation only where the material specification requires one. So matching a fitting's cert often runs through your receiving record rather than anything stamped on the part, and the draft shows which receipt and which supplier document it relied on.

What your system holds, and what your reviewer watches. Some distribution ERPs already track certs by lot. Computer Insights' help pages for The Business Edge describe certificate types set per product or per customer, raw-material certs carried into the lot at receiving, a Product Lots Missing Certificates report, and a lot that can't be allocated while a required cert is missing. The test still works only from copies and exports, and we never log in to your ERP. Your reviewer, often the quality or inside sales lead who signs your C of Cs, checks that every line needing paper was found, each report fits the lot that shipped, and every mismatch is real.

Once your reviewer says yes against the success criteria, the job drafts a cert packet for each new plant order that needs one, for about 30 days, before the shipment leaves.

A named person on your team checks, signs and releases every packet, and a line the draft couldn't match waits for them. No cert or C of C reaches a plant on a draft alone.