Keep each elbow, tee and reducer tied to its pipe heat and inspection.

Fitting makers cut pipe, push or press it into elbows, tees and reducers, or machine forged blanks into threaded and socket weld pieces for plant piping, fire lines and process skids. Then comes heat treatment, bevelling, pickling and marking. A fitting has little to look at, so the paper that travels with it carries the proof. The paper must be right. Buyers check it.

Production control for fitting plants keeps the raw pipe heat, the forming run, the heat treatment load and the inspection result under one lot number. The record is built as the work happens. Size, schedule and material grade are held on each order. Nothing is retyped.

A pipeline contractor or distributor orders elbows, tees, caps and reducers by nominal size, wall schedule, material grade and end type. You quote from pipe weight, forming cost, treatment and testing. Pipe or plate arrives with a heat number and a mill certificate. It is cut, hot or cold formed, and trimmed to length. Sizes change daily, sometimes three times in one shift, as the press crew moves from one die set to the next for a different schedule and wall. Every cut piece is counted.

Formed pieces go through solution annealing or normalising where the grade requires it, then are pickled, bevelled and ground. Dimensions and wall thickness are checked on a sample from each lot. Positive material identification and hydrostatic tests are done where the customer specifies them, and the operator notes the result on a sheet that is later copied into the certificate. Heat number, size and grade are marked on each fitting. Stamps are checked. Cartons or crates go out with one certificate per heat, and the loading list is matched to the order before the truck moves.