ITS Manitoba Audit Preparation for Inspection Companies

A ITS Manitoba audit runs in 6 stages, beginning with develop and implement a written quality control manual appropriate for the intended.. Inspection and Technical Services (ITS), a branch of Manitoba Labour and Immigration — a government department, not a delegated or arm's-length safety authority tests the system by sampling finished work backwards to the records behind it, so preparation means reconciling records to jobs rather than rewriting manuals.

Manitoba is the province where a US firm is most likely to assume a third-party route exists and find none. Inspection and Technical Services performs the periodic inspections itself and issues the inspection certificate; the published ITS material does not describe an owner-user self-inspection or accredited third-party inspection agency programme of the kind Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec operate. What a firm can hold is a Certificate of Authorization for construction, installation, alteration, repair or pressure welding performance testing, obtained by registering a written quality control manual with ITS and passing an implementation audit. Since June 8, 2020 ITS has applied a graded interval system rather than fixed annual and biennial inspections. What separates firms that clear an audit from firms that collect findings is not the quality of the documentation but whether it describes what actually happens. The finding recorded most often is: Repair or alteration work started before obtaining prior approval from ITS, which is required in every case.

Source: Manitoba Inspection and Technical Services Quality Control Program, Pressure Equipment Inspections, Repair and Alterations and Boiler & Pressure Vessel pages on gov.mb.ca; ITS Bulletin 22-004 Pressure Equipment Graded Inspections, describing the interval grading system implemented 2020-06-08; ITS Bulletin 20-003 Electronic Submissions Guide; The Steam and Pressure Plants Act and The Steam and Pressure Plants Regulation (Man. Reg. 108/87 R), and The Power Engineers Act. Note a genuine inconsistency in the source material: ITS pages variously cite The Technical Safety Act and The Steam and Pressure Plants Act as the governing statute, and the operative citation should be confirmed with ITS. Verified 2026-08-21.

ITS Manitoba audit — stages and what each tests
Stage	What happens	What it tests
Stage 1	Develop and implement a written quality control manual appropriate for the intended scope of work and meeting the applicable codes.	Where the paperwork is tested against itself
Stage 2	Register the quality control manual with Inspection and Technical Services, submitting electronically per bulletin ITS 20-003 to QASupport@gov.mb.ca.	Where the paperwork is tested against practice
Stage 3	Complete the implementation audit conducted by ITS.	Where the paperwork is tested against practice
Stage 4	ITS issues the Certificate of Authorization detailing the authorized scope of work, valid for a period not to exceed three.	Where the paperwork is tested against practice
Stage 5	Carry out all work in accordance with the registered manual, ensuring welders and brazers hold valid current Manitoba Welder Licences.	Where the paperwork is tested against practice
Stage 6	Review and update the manual and resubmit it before the expiry date to renew the certificate.	Where the paperwork is tested against practice
Renewal	The Certificate of Authorization is valid for a period not to exceed three years and must be renewed prior to the expiry date by submitting an updated manual. Equipment inspection certificates carry their own expiry dates and the next inspection must occur before that date. Since June 8, 2020 inspection intervals have been graded: equipment is first assigned a grade 1 interval and only becomes eligible for the longer grade 2 interval after a minimum of two in-service inspections under grade 1, depending on condition and deficiencies found.	Diarised from the certificate date, not the last audit

How long does ITS Manitoba audit preparation take?

Document work — the written practice, procedures and quality manual — takes weeks. What cannot be compressed is documented experience and records history: on-the-job hours accrue in real time, and calibration and certification history cannot be back-filled. Firms that start when the audit is scheduled rather than announced clear it without findings.

What does Inspection and Technical Services (ITS), a branch of Manitoba Labour and Immigration — a government department, not a delegated or arm's-length safety authority look at first?

Records, not manuals. A manual states intent; records show practice. The usual opening move is to take a completed job and trace it back to the technician's certification, the instrument's calibration, the approved procedure and the report — and see whether all four reconcile.

What are the most common ITS Manitoba findings?

Repair or alteration work started before obtaining prior approval from ITS, which is required in every case., Repairs performed under a Certificate of Authorization whose authorized scope does not actually include alteration and repair., Welders or brazers working without a valid current Manitoba Welder Licence, which the registered quality control programme requires., Certificate of Authorization allowed to lapse because the updated manual was not resubmitted before the three-year expiry.. Almost all of them are evidence problems rather than capability problems: the work was done correctly and the proof was not kept, or was kept somewhere the firm could not retrieve during the audit.

Can a consultant attend the ITS Manitoba audit?

Yes, and it changes the outcome. Someone who has sat through the same audit at other firms answers in the auditor's own terms, produces the right record without a search, and stops a clarification turning into a finding. The firm still owns every answer — the consultant does not speak for it.

What happens after a ITS Manitoba finding?

A corrective action with a deadline, and evidence of closure at the next audit. Repeat findings are treated far more seriously than first ones, because they show the corrective-action system itself is not working.

Does ITS Manitoba require a pre-audit or gap assessment?

Not as a requirement, but the arithmetic favours it: a gap assessment finds the same evidence problems the auditor would, without the finding attached, and while there is still time to fix them. Firms entering their first ITS Manitoba audit blind typically collect findings that a sampling exercise would have caught.

What the auditor asks to see

Written quality control manual appropriate to the scope of work, registered with Inspection and Technical Services
Registered welding and brazing procedures
Valid current Manitoba Welder Licences for all welders and brazers
Certificate of Authorization stating the authorized scope of work
ITS ES Form 01 Repair & Alteration Report, submitted for repairs and alterations
Prior ITS approval for each repair or alteration before work begins
Design registration submissions for pressure equipment used in Manitoba
Inspection certificates carrying the Manitoba Object Number for each unit in service

Findings to close before the audit

Repair or alteration work started before obtaining prior approval from ITS, which is required in every case.
Repairs performed under a Certificate of Authorization whose authorized scope does not actually include alteration and repair.
Welders or brazers working without a valid current Manitoba Welder Licence, which the registered quality control programme requires.
Certificate of Authorization allowed to lapse because the updated manual was not resubmitted before the three-year expiry.
Repair and alteration work not documented on ITS ES Form 01, or submitted without the unit location and Manitoba Unit number in the submission.
Equipment operated without a valid inspection certificate, which The Steam and Pressure Plants Act prohibits.
Assuming a grade 2 interval applies before the equipment has had the minimum two in-service inspections under grade 1.
Alterations made without design registration, including non-physical changes such as re-rating MAWP or design temperature, which Manitoba classifies as alterations.