Keep your quality consistent

Phil Cooper, product verification programme leader at the National Physical Laboratory puts forward the business case for achieving Nadcap M&I compliance.

The National Aerospace and Defence Contractors Accreditation Program (Nadcap) has brought together prime contractors, suppliers and government representatives for decades to achieve a standardised, streamlined approach to quality assurance, auditing and accreditation throughout the supply chain.

In 2016, a new Measurement and Inspection (M&I) certification was introduced to ensure that quality is measured across the industry consistently. Whilst current audit programmes only look in detail at certain parts of M&I practice, Nadcap's new certificate takes a wider approach, looking at everything from employee skills to calibration practices and onsite environment.

Many aerospace primes will be looking to mandate this Nadcap M&I certification to their supply chains. Boeing, for example, began mandating it earlier this year. This means that many aerospace and defence suppliers will need to achieve Nadcap M&I compliance or risk losing significant business.

Surveys of Nadcap-accredited suppliers show that they have seen an average 40% reduction in audits, saving significant resource, and 85% of Nadcap-accredited suppliers see an improvement in quality as a result of Nadcap. It’s clear that there are significant business benefits to achieving compliance for manufacturers, in addition to making your business attractive to aerospace primes.

Despite these benefits, many companies are not currently operating at compliance levels. In order to help manufacturers identify the areas that they need to improve on to achieve compliance, the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), the UK’s National Measurement Institute, offers a Nadcap Gap Analysis service. The service is intended to illustrate where there are potential gaps in current practices that may lead to Non-Conformance Reports (NCR) in a formal audit. It is performed by experienced measurement experts from NPL’s Product Verification team, who provide suggestions for good practice to support the company in assigning and prioritising corrective actions.

Aeromet International, a world leader in the production of aluminium castings, recently became the first UK company to achieve Nadcap M&I compliance, after using NPL’s Gap Analysis Service to identify potential non-conformance issues.

Due to the vital role good measurement practice plays in transforming businesses, NPL worked closely with key aerospace companies in the Nadcap team to establish the M&I standard. Through this, and NPL’s experience of helping businesses to identify potential non-compliance issues through the Gap Analysis service, we have identified three main areas that companies need to focus on when seeking Nadcap compliance:

Inspection planning and rollout - Manufacturers’ decisions about the inspection of parts can cause bottlenecks on their production lines which can impact productivity. Companies need to understand the level of inspection required for each component part, or the stage at which it should be taken in the production line to maximise productivity, whilst ensuring quality of the end product. This will help to avoid expending resource where it isn’t required and streamline operations.

Assessing environmental factors: There are many variables in a manufacturing environment. Temperature, humidity, light levels and vibration can all have significant impacts on production lines and products. Low humidity, for example, can create static that poses a real risk when using flammable or explosive materials. Changes in temperature and resulting thermal expansion can mean that parts manufactured at different times or locations along the production line can vary in size, resulting in problems during assembly or flaws in end products which can cost significant amounts to rectify. Companies should be aware of, and work to mitigate, all environmental factors from the outset to help achieve compliance, but also to improve the safety and quality of their output.

Planning for measurement: Whilst planning for measurement isn’t prescribed by Nadcap, improving it can help achieve compliance in many other areas and offer additional business benefits. Companies should consider whether they require a highly-skilled person to take certain measurements or independent validation of measurement. Whilst these both require investment, having the appropriate measurement skills and processes in place from the outset could save significant time and reduce inefficiencies down the line, as well as make Nadcap compliance a far simpler process.

Improving measurement and process in these three areas will place a business well on the way to achieving Nadcap compliance and reaping all of the business benefits that accompany it.

www.npl.co.uk