BACKGROUND
At an international conference on certification and standardisation held in England during 1996 it was proposed to establish a European wide certification scheme. Subsequently, informal discussions resulted in a meeting between representatives of the British Institute of NDT, COFREND and DGZfP to discuss the practicalities of the proposal. As a result, it was agreed that the three societies would jointly develop, for the then European Council for NDT, subsequently to become the EFNDT (European Federation for NDT), A European Central Certification Process (ECP).
The main objectives at that time were twofold:
* technical harmonisation of certification in Europe
* Enhanced negotiating power for recognition by organisations such as ASME and the FAA.
A working group was formed from representatives of each of the founding NDT Societies (the authors of this paper). This group was constituted at a June 1997 meeting of the ECNDT Qualification & Certification Working Group as a Working Group of ECNDT with a remit to develop the European Certification Process on the basis of an initial proposal by the founding NDT societies.
The Working Group