This post is about how a contractor for Saudi Aramco projects can effectively use Smart Welding Manager to fulfil all the requirements of SAEP-1160.

SAEP-1160 is a Saudi Aramco Engineering Procedure (SAEP) for Tracking And Reporting of Welding, NDT And Pressure Testing For Capital Projects. This document establishes minimum requirements and responsibilities for the tracking and reporting of production welding, welder performance, NDE tracking and pressure test verification associated with construction activities at Saudi Aramco facilities.

Clause 6.1 of this procedure requires: Contractor to make sure that data management and tracking systems shall have all relevant information to ensure material traceability of each components/item and weld joint. It shall link with the field material control record and shall have the capability to validate the input.

Smart Welding Manager offers full material traceability. Firstly, it has a repository for storing information about materials like heat number, material type, dimensions, quantity on hand, location, supplier as well as uploading the mill test certificate. Data can be brought in very quickly using a CSV (Excel) file and the files can also be uploaded in bulk. This screenshot shows a materials list in a project. The project can be configured to use metric or English units as the unit of measure.

Materials Repository

You can then select a weld and add the heat numbers of the materials welded. This screenshot shows the heat numbers and you can filter them by typing a few characters to automatically filter the heat numbers. Once heat numbers are selected, the weld will associate with the heat numbers and you may generate turnover packs, MDR or project data book with all the details, including the mill test certificates of these materials.

Pick Heat Number

“The contractor’s data management and tracking system shall maintain Welder/Welding Operator Registration and Track list of all project approved welders.
Note : Data management system shall manage and report the welder qualification expiry and renewal at 6 months interval linked to show evidence of continuity with supporting by the applicable NDE method records)”

With Smart Welding Manager, managing WPS, welders, their WPQs is very easy. As you can see in this screenshot, you can select WPS & welders to be used in a project. Only the qualified WPS, qualified and current welders will be available to be selected. Once welders are assigned and welds are completed, welders’ continuity logs will be automatically updated.

Select WPS and Welders for a Project

Warning emails will be sent at the end of five months of inactivity (i.e. if a welder has not welded to a procedure for five months) of expiry of a welder qualification.

Welder Continuity Expiry Warning Email

“The contractor’s database shall report welders by each sequence of welding ( e.g. in case of multiple welders are engaged for welding one joint the tracking system shall report welders utilized in root, hot pass, fill and Cap separately) and if more than one welder is engaged the length welded shall be separately calculated in order to have an accurate rejection rate.”

Welders who were used in a weld for root, fill and capping passes are tracked as are multiple welders who are used in a pass. Smart Welding Manager has a very user friendly Excel style interface to select multiple welder IDs.

Select Multiple Welders per Pass

If a weld is found to have a defect, Smart Welding Manager provides an interface where one of the welders used for the joint can be picked and the length of defect can be assigned. Reports are available to calculate the rejection rate.

Weld Defects and Length Assignment for a Welder

“The contractor’s database shall report weld rejection rate by both joint and linear basis separately for Welder/Welding Operator and Project weekly / cumulative.”

The weekly welder repair rate report gives a breakdown of joints welded by welder for the week and cumulative figures both for number of joints and on linear basis in the Saudi Aramco format SATR-W-2013. A copy of this file is available for download – click here to download.

Weekly Welder Repair Rate Report SATR-2013

“Contractor shall track Welder Classification based on welder performance criteria and shall be categorized as A, B, C, D based the criteria defined in applicable procedure.”

Welder classification report in Smart Welding Manager will classify welders from A to D based on their performance. If % Reject Inches (linear i.e. number of inches rejected/number of inches RT) is less than or equal to 0.2 and % Reject Joint (count i.e. number of joints rejected/number of joints RT) is less than or equal to 5, then the welder is classified as A. There are similar values for the classifications B, C & D. This report is available to be viewed, generated as a PDF file as well as in Excel format.

Welder Classification Report

Apart from these specific requirements, there are some other reports that Saudi Aramco requires their contractors to submit on a weekly basis. Weekly and Cumulative Weld Status Report SATR-W-2019 and Weld Summary, Welder Performance and Non-Destructive (NDT) Tracking System Report SATR-W-2008 are a couple of such reports. Copies of these files that are generated from Smart Welding Manager are available for download.

Saudi Aramco format Weld Summary, Welder Performance and Non-Destructive (NDT) Tracking System Report SATR-W-2008 – download the sample Excel file from this link. This file is automatically generated in Smart Welding Manager.

Saudi Aramco format Weekly Welder Repair Rate Report SATR-W-2013 – download the sample Excel file from this link. This file is automatically generated in Smart Welding Manager.

Saudi Aramco format Weekly and Cumulative Weld Status Report SATR-W-2019 – download the sample Excel file from this link. This file is automatically generated in Smart Welding Manager.

If you have specific queries on how to manage the welding data for Saudi Aramco projects, please get in touch with us.