Nadcap: the leading worldwide cooperative program of major companies designed to manage a cost-effective consensus approach to special processes & products and provide continual improvement within the aerospace & automotive industries

Nadcap Mission: To provide international, unbiased, independent manufacturing process and product assessments and certification services for the purpose of adding value, reducing total cost, and facilitating relationships between primes and suppliers.

"The Nadcap vision is to “develop a world-class special processor supply-base for the global aerospace industry using a cost-effective industry managed accreditation process”. Without successful teamwork built on mutually trusting relationships, the Nadcap program simply would not have the fuel to make its vision a reality. Here’s to coming together, sharing together, working together, and succeeding together."
- Chetan Date, NMC Chairperson

The Nadcap program includes the following special processes:

• Aerospace Quality Systems
• Chemical Processing
• Coatings
• Composites
• Distributors
• Elastomer Seals
• Electronics
• Fluid Distribution Systems
• Heat Treating
• Materials Testing Laboratory
• Non Destructive Testing
• Nonconventional Machining and Surface Enhancement
• Sealants
• Welding

For additional information regarding Nadcap accreditation please click here...

 

ISO 9000:2000 Certification

The ISO 9000 family is primarily concerned with "Quality Management". This means what the organization does to fulfill:

• the customer's quality requirements, and

• applicable regulatory requirements, while aiming to

• enhance customer satisfaction, and

• achieve continual improvement of its performance in pursuit of these objectives.

ISO standards are known as "generic management system standards" because they can apply to any organization, large or small, whatever its product, including whether its "product" is actually a service in any sector of activity, and whether it is a business enterprise, a public administration, or a government department.  "Management" refers to the organization's structure for managing its processes - or activities - that transform inputs of resources into a product or service which meet the organization's objectives, such as satisfying the customer's quality requirements, complying to regulations, or meeting environmental objectives.

The ISO 9001:2000 standard is the latest version of the ISO 9000 standard. The standard is reviewed periodically and revisions are made as needed.

Some of the reasons for the changes in the year 2000 revisions are:

• Emphasis on the need to monitor customer satisfaction
• Need for more user-friendly documents
• To ensure consistency between QMS requirements and guidelines
• To promote the use of generic quality management principles by organizations, and enhancement of their compatibility with ISO 14001

Some of the changes are:

• Consolidation from three standards to one
• Changes in clause structure, from a manufacturing sequence to a process model
• Terminology amendments
• Some additional requirements in areas such as continual improvement, customer focus, management responsibility, and process control
• A reduction in the details as to how organizations are to meet the requirements

For additional information regarding ISO 9000:2000 accreditation and certification please click here...

 

AS9100 Certification

AS9100 defines additional areas within an aerospace quality management system that must be addressed when implementing an ISO 9001:2000-based quality system. Typically, these requirements are included within robust aerospace quality systems.  These additions are essential to ensure product, process and service safety and quality.

AS 9100 seeks to assure customer satisfaction by having aerospace industry manufacturers produce world class quality products at the lowest possible cost. AS9100 standardizes, to the maximum extent possible, the quality system requirements of the aerospace industry. Standardization of such requirements can result in cost savings due to the elimination or reduction of unique requirements developed for each different customer.

In addition to the requirements listed in ISO 9001:1994, AS 9100 also includes aerospace sector specific requirements, which were felt to be necessary to assure the safety, reliability and quality of aerospace products. These include requirements in the areas of: configuration management; reliability, maintainability, and safety; design phase, design verification, validation, and testing processes; approval and review of subcontractor performance; verification of purchased product; product identification throughout the product's life cycle; product documentation; control of production process changes; control of production equipment, tools, and numerical control machine programs; control of work performed outside the supplier's facilities; special processes; inspection and testing procedures, methods, resources, and recording; corrective action; expansion of the internal audit requirements in ISO 9001t; first article inspection; servicing, including collecting and analyzing data, delivery, investigation, and reporting; control of technical documentation; and the review of disposition of nonconforming product.

As AS9100 becomes established within the industry, the standard's benefits become apparent. Two obvious ones are a reduction in multiple expectations and a consistency in verification methodology. Both prime manufacturers and their suppliers are pleased with the results. Suppliers report a reduction in verification audits and an increased consistency in expectations. As a direct result, suppliers' customers are seeing a reduction in oversight costs and an improvement in supplier performance.

 Additional information on the philosophy behind the specific additions within AS9100 are available in the AS9100 technical requirements chapter found in The ISO 9000:2000 Handbook published by ASQ Quality Press in 2002.

For additional information regarding AS9100 accreditation and certification please click here...

 

 

For additional information regarding Royal Plastic Mfg., Inc. quality systems or any of Royal Plastic Mfg., Inc. advanced composite products for aerospace applications please click here...

 

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