IIW 2016 Annual Report

WORKING UNIT MEETINGS IIW WU meetings throughout the week brought to- gether over 500 expert engineers, researchers, trai- ners and academics, as well as top R&D personnel and executives from leading global companies from all IIW Member Countries. There they presented and discussed the latest advances in welding and related technologies as well as common challen- ges for the industry, such as the worldwide shor- tage of competent welding personnel. A number of groups held joint sessions in areas of overlapping interest to minimise repetition and op- timise the cross-feed of knowledge and discussion between experts from different fields and coun- tries - highlighting the value of IIW’s collaborative model of global cooperation. Meetings of the IIW IAB and its working groups furthered the develop- ment and delivery of the IIW Education, Training,

Qualification and Certification Programmes. Other groups meeting at the Annual Assembly worked in areas such as standardisation, research colla- boration, regional activities, and communications and marketing of IIW. A total of 131 recommendations for publication were agreed by the various IIW Working Units du- ring the Annual Assembly, including 128 documents recommended for publication in the IIW’s peer-re- viewed journal Welding in the World and three recommendations for publication as an IIW book. Included in this total were 13 recommendations to the Working Group Standardisation relating to the development of international standards. The IIW is an international standardising body approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to develop standards in the field of welding and re- lated processes.

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE Entitled ‘From concept to decommissioning: The total life cycle of welded components’, the International Conference held on the Thursday and Friday provided the opportunity for assembly participants and people from outside IIW to hear papers presented by experts from Australia and around the world. The traditional keynote IIW Houdrement Lecture was given by Dr Stuart Cannon, Research Leader, Naval Architecture in the Maritime Division of the Australian Defence Science and Technology Group on ‘The role of welding technology in the performance of warships past, present and future’. His paper highlighted the critical role of welding in defence shipbuilding, and linked effectively with the presenta- tion on Australia’s Future Submarines given at the opening ceremony.

Working Unit meetings as well as session breaks held in the Trade Exhibition facilitated technology transfer and peer review by delegates, as well as networking and discussions for future collaboration

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