Material test report packages, matched line by line to the heats that actually shipped.

A PVF order can ship in pieces from different warehouses, with pipe from one heat, flanges from another, and fittings carrying a maker's code where a heat number would be. Someone checks the pick ticket or packing list, finds the report behind each line, reads the grade and specification against the order and files the set the customer asked for.

For the test, AI reads copies of those orders and reports and assembles the package for each shipment: each line, the heat it shipped from, the mill's report that covers that heat, and the grade and specification shown beside the order's wording. Whatever it can't tie together goes on a list with the reason. It never decides that a report satisfies a specification; a person on your team does.

Pipeline buyers keep these records for the life of the line. For onshore steel transmission pipelines, 49 CFR 192.607 calls for records of diameter, wall thickness, seam type and grade that are kept for the life of the pipeline and are traceable, verifiable and complete. Section 192.67 adds yield and tensile strength and chemical composition for pipe installed after July 1, 2020. On those same newer lines, Section 192.205 reaches valves, by the standard and pressure rating each was made and tested to, and reaches flanges, fittings and other components of X42 or higher over NPS 2, by the specification in effect when they were made. ASTM's own listing shows A106 moving from its 19a edition to a current 26, so the draft records the edition each report states. Those duties sit with the operator, and this is a summary, not legal advice; the draft never says a record meets any rule.

A fitting report is not a pipe report. ASTM A234, the wrought carbon and alloy fitting specification, applies to fittings covered by ASME B16.9 and B16.11 and four MSS standards, sends a fitting that differs from those standards to Supplementary Requirement S58 of A960, and leaves cast welding fittings to A216 and A217. A report naming A216 WCB on a line the order wrote as A234 WPB goes on the list, and so does a nonstandard fitting whose report never mentions S58. The draft shows the words on each report beside the words on the order, and your quality person decides what they mean.

The heat on the paper has to be the heat that shipped. A published piping guide on traceability says the number marked on the pipe, the report and the packing list should all agree, each heat should have its own report, and the packing list should say which items came from which heat. Real orders test that. One line splits across two heats, a bundle gets picked again, a fitting carries its maker's code in place of the mill's number. The draft lists any shipped line with no report for its heat, any report that covers none of the lines, and any line whose heat can't be read from your records.

Public water work brings its own paper. EPA's American Iron and Steel requirement for State Revolving Fund projects covers products such as lined or unlined pipes or fittings, flanges and valves. Its December 2016 refresher describes two routes: a letter from the final manufacturer, or Step Certification, in which each handler, whether supplier, fabricator, manufacturer or processor, certifies that its step was performed domestically. On a step-certified job your warehouse can be one link in that chain of letters. The draft lists the lines your reviewer marks as needing a letter and whether your file holds one, and it offers no view on whether a letter is enough.

What your reviewer watches. Usually the quality lead or whoever signs off certs. They check that each shipped line landed on the right heat and report, that every missing or mismatched report was caught, that nothing was called complete when it wasn't, and that the draft matches what your customer actually received. Dual-certified pipe, with more than one specification named on one report, belongs in the sample, along with a split-heat line and a report the mill reissued.

Once your reviewer says yes against the success criteria, each new order that needs reports gets a draft package for about 30 days, before the shipment leaves.

A named person on your team reviews every package, settles every missing or mismatched report and decides whether it goes. Nothing reaches a customer, and nothing changes in your ERP, on a draft alone.