Plants are quickly realizing that ISO 9000 certification is necessary to sell their products into the world marketplace. In the US, the Department of Defense will require that all of its vendors be ISO 9001 or 9002 certified by 1997.

Unfortunately, there is no "How To" manual on how to obtain ISO 9000 status for quality control for your company. Nor, is there a specific paragraph that can be cited in an ISO (or other QC standard) that states that a plant must use pipe markers.

But more and more plants view a comprehensive pipe marking project as a critical component in their ISO 9000 efforts. Why? In simple terms, pipe markers show that you have control over your plant. Your valve line-ups, your equipment inventory, the emission records and even your P&ID's may be entirely "live" and on a computer data base, but you have no good way show this level of sophistication.

In a sense, pipe markers become the tangible evidence of the plant's organization and commitment to safety and process standards. It is common to hear specific praise for the pipe marking efforts made by subject plants from the major ISO 9000 auditing firms.

Moreover, pipe markers have a real purpose: they educate the diverse workers and contractors at your plants. They help train your employees. They help prevent accidental manipulation of critical components and cut response time greatly by eliminating confusion when shutting down a line.

From the outside, an ISO 9000 auditor is really no better informed than the untrained and freshly hired worker. They both see the same thing: an exceedingly complex process that must be hard to control. Pipe markers help create both the sense and reality of order.