Improving Global Quality of Life

2.2 Today’s welding industry and its structures
The cost of welding, as an industrial process, plays a crucial role in manufacturing decisions. Many different
variables affect the total cost, including equipment cost, labour cost, material cost, and energy cost.
In recent years, in order to minimise labour costs in high production manufacturing, industrial welding
has become increasingly more automated, most notably with the use of robots in resistance spot welding
(especially in the automotive industry) and in arc welding. In robotic welding, mechanised devices both hold
the material and perform the weld, and at first, spot welding was its most common application. Robotic arc
welding, however, has been increasing in popularity as technology has advanced.
Other key areas of research and development include the welding of dissimilar materials (such as steel
and aluminium, for example) and new welding processes, such as friction stir, magnetic pulse, conductive
heat seam, and laser-hybrid welding. Specialised processes such as laser beam welding are now continually
finding new practical applications in industry sectors such as aerospace and automotive.
The modelling of weld properties such as microstructure and residual stresses, and the application of rapid
advances in IT and computer science to process development and automation provide a rapidly expanding
frontier for the modern welding industry.
Throughout the life of IIW, the scope of its technical programme has been continually expanded to include
new technologies. Such have included more recently, the joining of plastics and composites, the capabilities
of computers in design, process control, inspection and information handling, welding in a variety of
environments and under remote control, new concerns for the health and safety of those working in
industry and the environment and the education, training, qualification and certification of personnel and
companies.
2.3 Organisations, institutes, communication and networks
2.3.1 Early welding societies
The welding fraternity has enjoyed a long history of cooperation through the formation and networking of
numerous organisations, both at national and global levels.
The German Welding Society, Deutscher Verband für Schweißen (DVS), formed in 1897 from a number of
smaller organisations, was one of the earliest technical-scientific non-profit-making societies. It now offers
a network of 86 district branches (BVs), 14 state branches (LVs) and approximately 400 DVS® educational
facilities. The first German welding training and testing establishment, Schweißtechnische Lehr- und
Versuchsanstalt (SLV) was formed in Berlin-Brandeberg in 1927, later to join the 2003 amalgamation of SLVs
to form a national network under the banner of Gesellschaft für Schweißtechnik International (GSI).
The development of welding took place very rapidly from the time of World War I and consequently in many
countries there was a feeling among those in the welding fraternity that some kind of forum was required
to represent the views and aspirations of those working in the industry.
One of the first countries to respond was the United States, and the American Welding Society (AWS) was
formed on March 28, 1919. It was incorporated, specifically, as a multifaceted organisation with a goal to
advance the science, technology and application of welding and related joining disciplines. The AWS had its
origins in the Welding Committee of the Emerging Fleet Corporation, set up in 1917 by Woodrow Wilson and
chaired by a Harvard professor, Comfort A. Adams. The AWS published its first technical publication in 1919
and this provided the groundwork for the first issue of a journal by AWS which appeared in 1922. The society
then expanded rapidly and in that year had established chapters in eight American cities.
6 Improving Global Quality of Life Through Optimum Use and Innovation of Welding and Joining Technologies