Quality Consulting
API 6D Certification: A Practical Readiness Checklist
The documentation, design validation and factory acceptance evidence auditors actually ask for during an API 6D audit.
API 6D certification is less about paperwork and more about proving your process is repeatable. Auditors look for evidence, not promises.
A practical readiness checklist covers four areas: design validation records, material traceability, factory acceptance test data, and a documented nonconformance system.
Design validation must show that each valve family was tested to the full API 6D requirement, not just a representative sample. Material traceability links every heat number to a finished serial number.
Factory acceptance testing is witnessed and recorded. Nonconformances are logged, dispositioned and closed — with root cause, not just a rework note.
Get these four right and the audit becomes a confirmation, not a discovery.