Personal introduction
My name is Herman Pieper and I'm an independent consultant in my own company Pieper QSI since 1 October 2008. QSI means Quality Support and Inspection, but this is only a name and indicates only a part of the activities I'm offering.
I'm a well known person for a lot of people already since many years. This because of my presentations and presence at different Dutch welding groups as well as during NIL/BIL conferences in the past, and because of the network I build up in my position as Assistant Failure Analyses and Head Mechanical Testing Department at Bodycote Materials Testing BV � Emmen (in the meantime changed into Exova and that time respectively Matcon and MTS Matcon).
During these years I performed material examination in the widest definition of the word. This involves for example the qualification of welding procedures and welders, investigations for the cause of failures and execution of corrosion tests.
Before this position I followed a 2 years internal course at Matcons laboratory to become a Material Inspector and simultaneously I obtained the certificates International Welding Technologist as well as Testing and Inspection Expert Level IIb.
After 12 years being an employee of Matcon / Bodycote it was time to move my borders forward and I accepted a position as Production Manager at The Foundry Bennink & ten Cate BV � Heerenveen. In this position I also could use my material knowledge because of the wide range of materials casted by Bennink & ten Cate, such as Nickel base alloys (Hasteloy, Inconel and Monel) and all kind of Stainless Steels (Austenitic, Ferritic, Duplex and Super Duplex).
After this I came into contact with a company which just was starting to introduce a patented American technology at the European market. This concerns a so called high frequency hammering technology by which the fatigue strength from weld connections as well as base materials can be improved. For this company I roamed through Europe for another 5 years in order to perform presentations at all kind of companies as well as supporting test programs at several Universities and testing authorities. In this position I gained a lot of experience regarding fatigue problems in (welded) structures such as bridges, trains and even Airplane and Space applications.
In July 2008 I decide to start my own company from October 2008 in order to offer my knowledge to different companies and to support them in several special disciplines.
