Four document types, told apart by who did the testing and how independently. Receiving a 2.2 when the contract asked for a 3.1 surfaces at the worst moment.

The four types

2.1 — declaration of compliance with the order. The manufacturer states the products comply. No test results.

2.2 — test report. The manufacturer states compliance and supplies results from non-specific inspection: tests on material not necessarily from the delivered batch.

3.1 — inspection certificate. Results from specific inspection on the delivered products, validated by the manufacturer’s authorised inspection representative, who must be independent of the manufacturing department.

3.2 — inspection certificate. As 3.1, but validated additionally by the purchaser’s representative or an inspector designated by the official regulations.

Where it goes wrong

The distinction that matters most is between 2.2 and 3.1: whether the results relate to the material actually delivered. A 2.2 tells you the grade behaves as the grade should; a 3.1 tells you about this heat, in this delivery, in your yard.

Contracts specify 3.1 routinely. Deliveries arrive with 2.2 more often than anyone would like, and the discrepancy surfaces when the dossier is compiled, months later, when replacing the material is no longer a possibility and a concession has to be negotiated.

What has to be recordable

The document type each contract line requires
The document type actually received, per heat, per delivery
The link from the heat to the components made from it, and from those to the joints
The gap, visible while the delivery is still on the ground

That third point is the one that pays for itself. The dossier asks for material traceability from the finished weld backwards; if the link was not made at goods-in, it is reconstructed at handover from delivery notes and memory.