What Technical Documentation Should an Industrial Forging Supplier Provide?
A forged part rarely travels alone. It comes with a set of certificates, test reports, and traceability records that, in many industries, weigh as heavily in the purchase decision as the part itself. This isn’t a formality tacked onto the end of the process — it’s a requirement that determines whether that part can go into a petrochemical plant, a power-generation system, or any environment where failure isn’t an option. In this article, we look at the four pieces of that documentation package and how they fit together in practice.
Laboratory certifications and management systems
In some industries, such as petrochemicals and power generation, a technical specification doesn’t just call for a compliant part. It calls for proof that whoever manufactured and tested it is qualified to do so. Before we get into testing or traceability, it’s worth understanding what certifications stand behind the manufacturer itself, because a well-run test means little if the lab that performed it can’t demonstrate its technical competence.
ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation and the lab’s technical competence
The ISO/IEC 17025 standard isn’t just a certification: it’s an accreditation, a distinction that many specifications require in exactly those terms. A certification confirms that an organization follows a management system; an accreditation evaluates the lab’s actual technical competence to run specific tests with reliable, traceable results. It’s the difference between claiming you do good work and having an independent body confirm that you actually do. In Spain, this accreditation is granted by the Entidad Nacional de Acreditación (ENAC), the country’s national accreditation body.
For forging manufacturers, having this accreditation in their own test lab removes a layer of uncertainty for the customer: results for non-destructive testing (NDT), chemical composition, or mechanical properties no longer rest on the supplier’s word — they rest on a framework of competence that’s been audited externally.
The criminal compliance management system (UNE 19601)
Less familiar outside legal departments, the UNE 19601 standard addresses a specific reality: Article 31 bis of the Spanish Criminal Code lets a company reduce or avoid criminal liability if it can show it had an adequate crime-prevention system in place. Certifying to this standard isn’t a branding exercise, then, but a legal safeguard that more and more industrial clients ask to see before signing a long-term supply contract.
Other reference standards in the steel industry
Alongside these two, it’s worth mentioning the broader standards landscape that governs the industry. ISO, ASTM, EN, and JIS are the main frameworks that define chemical composition, mechanical properties, and test methods according to the destination market. No forging manufacturer working internationally can operate off a single standard: a part certified for Europe under EN may need re-certification under ASTM if it’s headed for North America.
Non-destructive testing (NDT): inspection without compromising the part
Knowing the lab is accredited is only the first filter. The next question is what actually gets measured, and that’s where non-destructive testing comes in: the set of techniques that make it possible to look inside a forged part without destroying it in the process. Its job is to detect internal defects (cracks, inclusions, porosity) that no visual inspection could reveal, and it’s used so widely across the industry that it’s become standard practice in any forging process, regardless of the specific part or its final destination.
Main methods (ultrasonic testing, liquid penetrant testing, magnetic particle testing)
It’s worth noting that each method is designed to detect a different type of defect. Ultrasonic testing, governed in forged parts by standards like UNE-EN 10228 or ASTM A388, detects internal discontinuities by measuring how sound waves travel through the material. In fact, experimental studies confirm that the degree of reduction the material undergoes during forging directly affects that wave propagation, which is why this test is so sensitive to the quality of the prior process. Magnetic particle testing (ASTM A275, ASTM E709) and liquid penetrant testing, by contrast, focus on surface or near-surface defects, complementing what ultrasonic testing can’t see.
When they’re mandatory and which standards govern them
The manufacturer doesn’t get to decide which tests are mandatory: that depends on the end use, how critical the part is, and the customer’s specifications. A flange destined for a petrochemical plant, for example, will call for a very different level of NDT than a low-criticality structural component. Standards like UNE-EN 10228 (the full series) serve as the European framework, while ASTM covers the North American market. A manufacturer exporting to both must therefore master both, not just one.
Hardness testing after heat treatment
Heat treatment changes a part’s mechanical properties, and hardness testing is the most direct way to verify that the change actually took place correctly. It isn’t a stand-alone test: it’s confirmation that an earlier process — the heat treatment — did its job, closing the loop between manufacturing and documented quality control.
Material and part traceability
Certifying a lab and testing every part doesn’t count for much if, when an issue comes up, you can’t reconstruct that part’s complete history: which heat the material came from, what treatments it went through, what tests it passed, and when. That’s the role of traceability: turning every forged component into an object with a verifiable history, not just a finished product.
What traceability is, and why standards require it
Industrial traceability is the set of procedures that lets you follow a part’s trail from raw material to final destination. In forging, that means distinguishing between upstream traceability — tracing a batch’s origin back to the specific steel heat — and downstream traceability, which follows the part forward to its final installation. Standards like EN 10204 don’t leave this to the manufacturer’s discretion: they define specific types of inspection certificate (2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2), each with a different level of independent verification, and it’s these types that a customer explicitly requires in the order based on how critical the part is.
The heat number and the material’s chain of custody
The heat number is the identifier for the steel heat a part comes from — in other words, the link that connects the entire paper trail. From it, you can reconstruct the chemical composition, mechanical properties, and tests performed on that specific batch. Physical marking of the part (by stamping, color coding, or more recent data-capture systems) is what carries that identifier from the paperwork to the actual part, ensuring that the documented and physical traceability never diverge.
Traceability in high-risk EPC projects
EPC projects (Engineering, Procurement & Construction) push traceability requirements to another level, because risk compounds: a single component without full traceability can hold up certification for an entire installation. In this context, traceability stops being a good internal practice for the manufacturer and becomes an explicit contractual requirement, audited by third parties before, during, and after manufacturing.
Technical standards and manufacturing specifications
Certifications, testing, and traceability all converge, in the end, on one specific technical standard that defines what the part itself has to be: its dimensions, its material, its working pressure. Without that final link in the standards chain, the whole documentation package built up to this point would have nothing to check itself against.
ASME B16.5 and its influence on forged flanges
ASME B16.5 is to forged flanges what EN 10204 is to traceability: the mandatory framework of reference across great swaths of international industry, especially oil, gas, and power generation. It covers flanges and fittings from NPS 1/2 to NPS 24, in pressure classes from 150 to 2500, and sets out pressure/temperature rating tables specific to each material group, so the same flange can carry a very different maximum allowable pressure depending on the expected service temperature.
Its function goes beyond setting dimensions: it ensures interchangeability between manufacturers. A flange produced under ASME B16.5 by one manufacturer has to mate cleanly with a component from another manufacturer that meets the same standard, which means the required marking has to be precise and verifiable on every part. In a way, it’s the point where all the preceding technical documentation — lab certification, testing, material traceability — turns into a physical specification the customer can verify with a simple read of the marking.
None of these four pieces works in isolation. Lab accreditation gives the testing its value. Testing gives traceability its meaning, because knowing where a part came from isn’t enough if you don’t also know what controls it passed. And all of it, ultimately, gets measured against a technical manufacturing standard that determines whether the part conforms or not. When one link is missing, the rest lose their force: flawless traceability doesn’t make up for a badly certified test, and a well-applied technical standard doesn’t substitute for missing traceability when an issue comes up.
At ULMA Forged Solutions, we don’t treat this documentation chain as a one-off requirement for each order; we treat it as a systematic practice that runs through the entire manufacturing process, from the lab’s own accreditation to the final marking on every forged part.