FDQ Tier 1 · Opening soon

From the crew to your first quality job.

Tier 1 is an online course for pipeline hands with no quality background. It teaches the work of a contractor QC tech or an owner-side junior inspector, on the right-of-way and inside the fence.

Watch lesson 1 free What Tier 1 covers

A welding shack hanging from a sideboom over a pipeline joint on the right-of-way — Northern Minnesota, 2021. Photo: Tony Webster, CC BY 2.0

Every weld on the job ends up as one line like this.

Years after the pipe is buried, someone will ask where a weld is, what went into it, and whether you can prove it. A quality hand keeps the record that answers all three. Tier 1 teaches you to read it, fill it in and keep it straight.

Weld	Station	Pipe A / B	Heat A / B	Root & hot	Fill & cap	WPS	Date	NDE
FW-A-RT-0432	486+40	2041 / 2042	Y60184 / Y60197	W-031, W-044	W-052, W-058	WPS-36-01	08-25-2026	0432-A ACC

From the lesson 1 weld log. The project and the numbers are made up for training.

Tier 1 is the quality side of the job, taught by someone who's done it.

Who it's for

Welders, helpers, operators, laborers and foremen who already know what good work looks like and want to move to the quality side. You don't need a quality background, and you don't need a CWI to start.

It covers gas and hazardous liquid lines and their stations, under 49 CFR 192 and 195.

What you'll be able to do

Find where any requirement on the job comes from, and which document wins when two disagree
Read the drawings and check the built work against them
Trace pipe and fittings from the mill cert to the weld
Number and map every weld and keep the records that pass turnover
Check welding, NDE, coating, bolting and pressure testing against the approved procedure
Run a QC day, and know where your authority stops

See all 12 modules

A frame from lesson 1: a finished girth weld marked up with Where? What? Proof?

Free lesson · 4 minutes 35 seconds

Lesson 1: Why weld maps exist

The first lesson of the weld mapping module. Put your email on the Tier 1 list and it opens right away, with the weld map field card to print.

Watch lesson 1 free

Three tiers. Tier 1 opens first.

Tier 1
From the crew to your first quality job: contractor QC tech or owner-side junior inspector.
Opening soon
Tier 2
For working QC inspectors and quality engineers who run quality on an active project.
Coming soon
Tier 3
For quality managers and directors who build the program a whole project works in.
Coming soon

Who's behind FDQ

I started as a field inspector, holding the weld log on the right-of-way, and I've worked quality on pipeline, LNG, compressor station and industrial jobs since.

The best quality hands I worked with came up through the crew. FDQ is the course I wish someone had handed them: what the job actually is, what the paperwork is for, and how to do it so the crew still respects you.

More about FDQ