We’re aware of the invasion of low quality imported &indigenous substandard products in all walks of our lives;however they’ve not refrained themselves from supplying cheapand substandard/ unreliable quality pipes in such criticalapplications as well.

• Mill Surplus/ Mill Rejected:During manufacturing certain pipes which don’t meet any one of the quality parameters of the specification are considered Commercial/ Surplus Grade pipes. These pipes are sold by the Mill without any Identification Marks & Testing Certification.
• Substandard Mills:There are many mills worldwide whose Unique Selling Proposition is PRICE & BULK QUANTITY;these mills don’t follow stringent quality parameters for eg. rawmaterial (Billets) used which haven’t been vacuum degassed. During the manufacturing process commercial/ substandard pipes are mixed along with pipes of Prime quality.
• Used Surplus lots from Actual users: At times after a project is completed or if a plant is temporarily shut down for maintenance; used/unused material from the plant is sold in the open market at a throwaway price. These pipes are then refurbished by unscrupulous traders to look as brand new & sold to customers who intend to use them in critical applications. Thus the client ends up paying premium for a secondhand, substandard product. Although these pipes may pass mechanical & chemical tests but they’re way too inferior in performance& this can be ascertained over a period of time.

The substandard pipes are stenciled with branding of reputed manufacturers & mill test certificates are easily fabricated withhelp of document editing tools.

Sometimes traders claim to sell materials originating from Japan/ Europe at cheap rates are only taking advantage of customers innocence; in-fact Japanese/ European origin pipes are very expensive due to itssuperior quality; but these unscrupulous traders sell them at a price even lower than the Indian mills. They provide fake MTC’s of European/ Japanese Mills which cannot be easily verified from the manufacturer.

Few suppliers cheat the clients by supplying them with partiallygenuine pipes. For eg.: If a client places order for 100 pipes, the vendor will initially buy 10 pipes from genuine stockist but the remaining 90 pipes supplied are of inferior quality or the used/ rejected pipes which are refurbished making them look exactly similar to original ones. The supplier forges the MTC of original 10 pieces and converts them into 100 pipes, it’s just like a case of adulterating milk with water.

Solution:

• Always insist on retaining the Original MTC if full quantitypertaining to the MTC is sold to you.
• Always insist on verifying the Copy of MTC with its Original Copy.
• Insist on pre-inspection of pipes at the Vendor’s Stock Yard.
• Even Original MTC’s can be fabricated hence insist on materials produced by Mfg.’s which is of High Quality & one’s whichcan approached for further verification by sending them copiesof the MTC, pictures of Pipes finishing & identification marks.
• Verify consumption chart on the MTC’s about balance numberof pipes pertaining to that MTC.
• For Bulk quantities insist on direct dispatch from the factory

Seamless Pipes are generally sold in mtrs& are random in lengths of 5 -7 mtrsalso the quantity is used in bulk, there have been cases where quantity is reported in the invoice more than the actual quantity supplied.

Since the pipes are in random length,measuring the length of each pipe is a verytime consuming& resource draining procedure.

Solution:

• Insist on Individual pipe length from vendor.
• Insist on pipe length being mentioned on each & every pipe.
• Measure pipes randomly to check genuineness of length mentioned on the pipe.
• Insist dispatch from Mill directly, or order pipes in Fixed Length. Hence manipulation in length will be impossible.

At times it’s been observed that suppliers are selling ERW (Welded) pipes instead of Seamless Pipes, visually the difference between seamless & welded pipes can only be ascertained via the weld joints, the same can be removed by means of Grinding the pipe internally; by doing this there is no visual difference between Seamless & ERW pipes, but application & price wise there is a vast difference as seamless pipes are used in critical applications. This kind of malpractice puts the whole plant/ equipment at risk.

Solution:

• The pipe is seamless or welded can be ascertained via destructive testing method macro-etching test.
• At times, these sub-standard pipes pass under theunsuspecting customers nose and are used in the plants & go unnoticed, because quality conscious customers set up a project considering lifespan of 15-20 years, hence the designing of the plant & the materials to be procured are much superior than the actual application requirement, thus the inferior quality material used will easily meet the actual requirement rather than the project requirement which the customer ordered, considering longer project life & for which the customer thinks that they are paying a premium for superior quality products.

• Performance –It leads to poor plant performance, like powerconsumption, yield etc. are adversely affected due to useof substandard materials.
• Shutdown/ Replacement Downtime - Due to use of substandard materials the plant goes into shutdown/ maintenance repeatedly; thushampering production.
• Peace of Mind - Using non genuine products will always keep thecustomer on the edge of a sword.