It is mandatory to submit Material Test Certificate to the customer along with the material in Oil & Gas Industry. There are various types such as 2.1, 3.1, 3.2 etc. indicating whether readings are to be provided and whether they have to be witnessed by external agency.

Therefore manufacturers of Valves, Fittings, Pipes, Tubes, Fasteners etc. all have to prepare Material Test Certificate for every item on the order. In case of assembly, MTC has to be given for all critical components.

Material Test Certificate consists of Chemical Analysis results and Physical Properties of the items. Chemical readings don't change and hence mostly the readings have to be pulled from the Raw Material Test Certificate. Whereas the physical readings have to be made after testing.

This is the most important document without which material is not accepted by the customer.

There are quiet a few challenges in preparing the Material Test Certificate.

First of all one has to maintain traceability of the lot of Raw Material Heat No wise. For every heat number there can be multiple Test Certificates associated with it. Like the Mill TC and the other Lab TCs. Every material has a grade defined by different standards and the range of readings for each such standard grade are fixed. So one has to validate the readings of the Raw Material Test Certificates.

The physical properties of steel change after heat treatment. Hence readings of every heat treatment lot has to be captured.

While preparing the MTC, one has to check the Heat No to pull the Chemical Readings out of the choice of multiple RM TCs and then add physical readings after heat treatment. Also in some cases the customer may ask a third party to witness the readings. In such scenario the Chemical Readings will be that of the latest readings which were witnessed. All this has to be systematically printed along with standards and the limits prescribed by the standard.

And all this has to be done for all critical components in case of an assembly.

After a detailed study of all the scenarios of Material Test Certificate, OurSys ERP was enhanced in 2007 to generate Material Test Certificates at a click of a button.

There is a facility to capture Raw Material Test Certificate. Both Mill TC and Lab Testing results are captured. Further if there is heat treatment the physical properties are also captured.

There is a provision to generate a Test Certificate from Sales Order as well as from an Invoice. For the each item on the order or invoice, Oursys retrieves the associated readings, checks the TC Type, desired standard and prints the Sales Material Test Certificate. If there are multiple RM TCs, OurSys allows for the choice between them.

It also allows the user to choose the unit of measurements for the physical readings and automatically converts the captured readings into the desired unit of measurement.

In case of assembly items, the user can mark the critical components and the Test Certificate is generated for all those components.

OurSys has simplified the process of making Material Test Certificates and it can now be generated by low skilled person and the company need not be dependent on few skilled quality engineers.

OurSys also ensures that the Test Certificate is generated accurately with all the standards being followed. All human errors have been eliminated.

Also the Test Certificates get generated at a click of a button saving huge amount of time.

The system is also audit friendly and the Test Certificates can be retrieved anytime later and the trace of heat numbers along with their readings are always available.

In the end, all this helps in improving customer satisfaction, as they get Test Certificates as desired without any flaws and well in time.

Also, these certificates can be made available to them online for anytime access.