and other equipment sets are highly flexible regardless of the actual location of the equipment in general as represented in fig1 the system includes a monitoring analysis system 24 that communicates with the monitoring welding systems and support equipment and that can collect information from these when desired a number of different scenarios may be envisaged for accessing and collecting the information for example certain welding systems and support equipment will be provided with sensors control circuitry feedback circuits and so forth that allow for collection of welding parameter data some details of such systems are described below where system parameters such as arc on time are analyzed for example data may be collected in each system reflecting when welding arcs are established and times during which welding arcs are maintained currents and voltages will commonly be sensed and data representative of these will be stored for support equipment such as grinders lights positioners fixtures and so forth different parameters may be monitored such as currents switch closures and so forth as noted many systems will be capable of collecting such data and storing the data within the system itself in other scenarios local networks computer systems servers shared memory and so forth will be provided that can centralize at least at some extent the data collected such networks and support components are not illustrated in fig1 for clarity the monitoring analysis system 24 then may collect this information directly from the systems or from any support component that themselves collect and store the data the data will typically be tagged with such identifying information as system designations system types time and date part and weld specification where applicable operator and or shift identifications and so forth many such parameters may be monitored on a regular basis and maintained in.