This document is part of a series of standards dealing with specification and qualification of welding procedures. Annex A gives details of this series of standards, Annex B gives a table for the use of these standards, and Annex C gives a flow diagram for the development and qualification of a WPS.

This document defines general rules for the specification and qualification of welding procedures for metallic materials. This document also refers to several other standards as regards detailed rules for specific applications.

This document is applicable to manual, partly mechanized, fully mechanized and automated welding.

Welding procedures are qualified by conforming to one or more welding procedure qualification records (WPQR). The use of a particular method of qualification is often a requirement of an application standard.

It is assumed that welding procedure specifications are used in production by competent welders, qualified in accordance with the relevant part of ISO 9606 or by competent operators qualified in accordance with ISO 14732.