Accreditation and Quality Improvement
Achieving the highest levels of quality is of critical importance to the UK aerospace and defence supply chains.
Quality management system audits are an essential part of ensuring safety and reliability standards are maintained and in promoting consistency of approach across the industry.
A company supplying to more than one customer may face numerous audits, checks and interventions from these customers, resulting in considerable duplication.
SC21 companies have agreed, as a result, to work together to avoid that duplication by recognising quality management system certification to international standards, by adopting and developing common processes for product and process oversight and by seeking to improve the quality performance of the overall supply chain, using common techniques based upon international best practice.
1) AS/EN 9100, 9110 or 9120
The AS or EN 91XX standards were developed by the International Aerospace Quality Group (IAQG) as the recommended standards for quality management systems in the aerospace industry. The standards are supported by the large majority of aerospace manufacturers worldwide and are increasingly being accepted for defence applications. To achieve any of the standards an organisation needs to obtain approval from an accredited third party certification body. Certification bodies based in the UK are subject to an industry oversight programme administered by the SBAC, with experienced quality audit professionals from UK aerospace companies undertaking oversight audits. This scheme is in turn subject to oversight as part of an international process directed by the IAQG to ensure worldwide consistency.
Organisations formally registered to AS/EN 9100, 9110 or 9120 are entered onto an international database, identified as the Online Aerospace Supplier Information System (OASIS), with more than 1100 UK sites already registered.
IF Support Packages
2) Nadcap
The internationally recognised Nadcap system of special process audits is the recommendation for special process assessment. A growing number of major primes are now requiring Nadcap approval(s), which is overseen by the Performance Research Institute (PRI, based in the US with an office in the UK) using experienced special process professionals. Processes covered by this approach include chemical processing, coatings, composites, elastomer seals, electronics, fasteners, fluids distribution, heat treatment, materials testing laboratories, non destructive testing, non-conventional machining and surface enhancement, sealants and welding, with other special processes being progressively added.
