NADCAP and S400 Accreditation
We interviewed Paola Marconi – Quality Manager of Sideius (TEC Eurolab), asking her to elaborate on the meaning, value and opportunities of obtaining such an important accreditation as NADCAP accreditation.
What is the NADCAP program and what is it for?
The NADCAP accreditation is an extremely specific accreditation of the aerospace sector that reports a set of essentially technical requirements related to production processes or test areas, as in our case, that suppliers of aviation primes must meet in order for their sufficient level of quality and control of production processes and testing to be guaranteed. The establishment of this program was desired by the large aviation primes, such as GE Aviation, Boeing, and Airbus, in order to be able to ensure quality control of the entire supply chain. Obtaining NADCAP accreditation means having sustained a path of structuring and maintaining an internal quality system capable of leading the corporate structure involved to operate in accordance with what is stated in the technical certification documentation. And from the point of view of corporate visibility, this certification allows the company to place itself in a privileged position as a “qualified supplier” to prime and contractors in the aviation industry, allowing the process of obtaining further OEM proprietary qualifications to be accelerated significantly. In addition, fulfillment of the expressed requirements is mandated for the performance of certain processes or test activities; therefore, this certification is certainly a strong weapon of differentiation from competitors.
So, is it in the direct interest of aviation OEMs to have their suppliers be NADCAP accredited, even before specific proprietary accreditations?
Yes because this greatly alleviates the workload of qualification operations, which would otherwise fall entirely on the OEMs themselves, who would have to carry out a lot of inspection and audit activities, taking into account that, as I said, we are not only talking about the test area, but mainly about production and manufacturing processes. So the entire aviation supply chain is involved. From the material, to the component, to the testing process.
How does the accreditation process take place? What, in summary, are the necessary steps?
You apply to join the program, which is managed by the company PRI, which operationally governs the NADCAP program itself. The company manages all the checklists where all the technical requirements that must be met to obtain accreditation are detailed. Each production process or test mode has its own dedicated checklist. A mechanism must then be set up whole to the company to check the initial status against the recalled requirements and able to structure an improvement path until the reported requirements are met. In parallel, verification audits will be agreed upon and scheduled. Once certification is obtained, it has a duration of 12 months, which can be extended up to 18-24 months. Obviously, if nonconformities are verified during a subsequent audit and these are not effectively handled, this could result in the suspension of the accreditation itself.
For how many years has TEC Eurolab been within the NADCAP program? And what types of tests?
We now have more than a decade of experience, and over time we have steadily increased the type of testing, both destructive and nondestructive, under accreditation. On the nondestructive testing side, we started with the accreditation of film radiography and then we included liquid penetrant. In being we have in place the extension ofaccreditation for hot tensile testing, which involves the implementation of a process of control and verification of the thermal part of the machinery as well, so the verification of thermocouples and thermometric chains. And then we also have in place accreditation for fatigue testing, both HCF and LCF. In this case, we have already participated in interlaboratory circuits, proficiency tests necessary to validate the experimental results obtained to meet the qualification requirements, providing objective evidence of how the test is conducted.
For a company facing this type of accreditation for the first time, what supporting role could a laboratory like TEC Eurolab, which instead already has many years of experience, play?
I would say that in the audit approach, TEC Eurolab’s experience can be very useful for those who find themselves answering questions from the certification body for the first few times or need to provide evidence regarding any nonconformities found. Of course, our scope is testing-related, but we have structured expertise and proven ways to effectively manage an audit or new accreditation process.
What if the possibility of working with a prime provider on a scope for which you are not NADCAP certified materializes? How can this be done?
In this case, it is the potential customer himself who makes a request for accreditation of his supplier to prime. For us, this was the case withS400 accreditation for material testing services, issued by GE Aviation. Similar to NADCAP, obtaining a specific qualification of a prime allows it to be identified by the entire supply chain as an enabled party, resulting in increased visibility throughout the supply chain. In particular, several qualification extensions are underway in S400, including special metallographic analyses and chemical as well as mechanical analyses.