I have had on my desk for the longest time the industry standard from the American Welding Society that established precise terminology and definitions for welding.

AWS Standard A3.0:2001 is a 141-page document that sets out those standard terms and definitions, and it gives me headaches.

It is a living document that was developed by a dedicated committee of 21 industry professionals. Those experts gave their time to two AWS committees — the Committee on Definitions and Symbols, and the Definitions Subcommittee — to develop or refine the definitions presented in the Standard, and their efforts should be acknowledged and appreciated.

By calling it a “living document” I mean that the terms and definitions in the latest edition of the standard — which was issued in 2001 — were updated from the previous edition, which was published in 1994.

Unless you have served on an industry standards committee, you might be unaware of the effort that goes into developing and updating the principal rules, terms and definitions that an industry lives by. The process requires hard work, parliamentary skills and diplomacy and, often, a willingness to be argumentative.

I haven't served on a standards committee, but I have sat in on many standard committee meetings, and I've come to develop an appreciation for how challenging it is to establish them.

Sometimes setting a standard merely acknowledges how advanced a segment of an industry is, so the standard says: “This is the state of the art.”

At other times, setting a standard becomes a goal for the industry, as the standards committee acknowledges that certain segments of an industry are more advanced, so the standard is set to say: “Here is where you should be.”

In either case, it is a sure bet that the “standard” is a process or a technology that has been achieved, and that, for the future, would be considered a “best practice” for the industry.

In the best cases, industry standards are set by the leading engineering, research and development experts whose goals are to disseminate best practices throughout the industry they work in and to establish a baseline of operations that says: “If you are going to be a part of this industry, this is what you have to live up to.”

That's easier to do in engineering areas than it is with words. It's one thing to set a standard for a weld, in which dimensions and features such as the weld face, the root and fusion can be defined and diagramed and verified. But it's more difficult to establish standards for terminology, and that's the reason that AWS 3.0:2001 — the Standard on Welding Terms and Definitions — gives me headaches.

For example the AWS Standard clearly defines “gas tungsten arc welding,” which everyone knows as “TIG welding;” and “flux cored arc welding” or “gas metal arc welding,” which is commonly known as “MIG welding.” The standard says “TIG” and “MIG” are nonstandard terms for the processes.

Walter J. Sperko, a consultant and president of Sperko Engineering Services, Inc. (www.sperkoengineering.com), is a sharp-eyed reader who keeps me honest in terminology. He is an advocate of standards and he's never shy about sending an email to point out discrepancies, and how the use of non-standard terms can detract from the accuracy of an article. He and others have said that, as an industry leader, Welding Magazine should use industry standard terms.

The problem is that those industry definitions aren't the words that the majority of people in the industry use to talk about what they do. I've come to the conclusion that Standard 3.0:2001 is one of those standards that sets a goal for the industry.

This is a benchmark that the industry should aspire to, and I'm in favor of supporting that goal, so you're going to see more standard terminology in this magazine in the future that you might have to look up so that your understanding is as precise as our intention.