I hope I'm not breaking the rules by asking for some help on here as this is more of a quality query than a H&S one but I don't have anywhere else to turn and I'm hoping someone out there may be able to advise to assist me in developing our own quality system. When a quality standard for a range of consumables (BS EN 12072: 2000 is relevant in my case) is withdrawn and replaced with a new standard (BS EN ISO 14343:2007) how long afterwards would you expect to see products still certificated to the withdrawn standard? I appreciate that there will be a period of cross over between standards in this type of scenario but finding suppliers still advertising products to withdrawn standards 7 years after they were superseded just seems a bit strange to me.

As far as I am aware, the standards you refer to are to do with "classification" of welding consumables and not "certification". In fact, the most recent standard is BS EN ISO 14343:2009 "Welding consumables — Wire electrodes, strip electrodes, wires and rods for arc welding of stainless and heat resisting steels — Classification" http://shop.bsigroup.com.../?pid=000000000030167114 http://shop.bsigroup.com.../?pid=000000000030131860 http://shop.bsigroup.com.../?pid=000000000019970474 It may be better to raise this with the relevant professional body, i.e. The Welding Institute. http://www.theweldinginstitute.com/