Rozie Roznovak is featured in this edition of Quality Times in the “QCP Rep Spotlight.” While sharing his industry experience with QT, he passed along his observations about the evolution of AWI Standards and the benefits of education of all parties.
The evolution of the AWI Standards during my woodworking career can be seen comparing the size and content of the various editions: from small leaflet style booklets in the 60s, to 103-page editions in the 70s, to 300 pages in the early 90s, to 500 pages in the late 90s, to 600 pages in the early 2000s, and finally to the current 500-page 2014 AWS 2nd Edition. The ongoing development of AWI Standards under the accredited ANSI process is changing the fabrication, finishing and installation rules.
The rules will be abbreviated, less prescriptive and less restrictive going forward. That said, casework conformance to duty levels might require testing and validation by licensees. I believe the change and evolution of the Standards creates an important secondary task for QCP Reps, namely to help licensees understand and navigate the new ANSI / AWI Standards in their efforts to insure project conformance, quality control and lead to QCP certification.
The tendency of architectural specification writers to copy and paste from out-of-date specification templates or from past projects might raise questions and create conflicts. QCP Reps will continue to play an integral part in promoting inquiry and informing stakeholders—hopefully resulting in trouble free transition from their familiarity with previous AWS Editions to the newer ANSI / AWI editions.
The QCP Policies (part 4.6) provide a definition of the QCP Rep and the Rep’s responsibilities, which is narrow, but in reality, is sometimes broader depending on the myriad questions raised by many woodworkers who view the Rep as the link to QCP.
The only time a QCP Inspector might “represent” the licensee is during pre-inspection meetings, project specification review and shop drawing submittal review. One thing I often do during pre- and post-inspection meetings is to ask the licensee’s guide to log on to the AWI QCP website using his/her desk top computer. Walking woodworkers through the available information was very important during past licensee application and inspections. I give interested woodworkers a quick tutorial to find useful resources by clicking on “Insights” on the horizontal menu bar of the home page of www.awiqcp.org where they can find: Guide to Standards, Blogs, Publications, Video Gallery, Podcasts, and Resources.
Once fabrication and installation inspections begin, however, the Rep performs an independent third-party quality assurance review and evaluation as an inspector, thus “representing” the owner and architect.