Delivering a Complete Package

From left to right: Kathy Robbins, Ball Aerospace, Marta Sellers, Faustson Tool, Paul Svaldi, Faustson Tool, Heidi Hostetter, Faustson Tool, Alicia Svaldi, Faustson Tool, Terry Curtland, Ball Aerospace, Dee West, Ball Aerospace, and Jackie Sondergaard, Faustson Tool.

In June 2008, Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation (BATC) approved Faustson as the first outside supplier to perform "delegated inspection" of the parts it supplies to the BATC Offload Program. Since then, BATC has approved two more suppliers after seeing the successful implementation that Faustson provided. Faustson has been providing parts to BATC for several years, doing complex, close-tolerance work.

Faustson is one of 15 outside suppliers that BATC uses when its in-house machining resources are occupied. Faustson and the other 14 suppliers are contractually considered an extension of the BATC machine shop.

Because the volume of parts coming into BATC from these outside suppliers is large, BATC does not have the manpower to perform dimensional inspection on all the parts. A NASA audit found that parts coming in from suppliers were not being inspected. Because the suppliers are considered an extension of the in-house machine shop, a delegated inspection program effectively addresses this bottleneck.

BATC's Mechanical Strategic Sourcing Team was responsible for approving suppliers for the delegated inspection program. The team designed a test part that included some challenging Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerance (GD&T) aspects, then asked the supplier to measure the part. When the supplier's measurements are compared to measurements taken by the BATC Dimensional Lab, it quickly becomes clear whether the supplier has a good understanding of GD&T. (For more about GD&T, see the June 2007 issue of the Faustson Forum: http://www.updatefrom.com/faustson/0706/newsletter.html.)

With each lot delivered, an approved supplier provides an "end item data package," which includes dimensional inspection data to be reviewed by a BATC Dimensional Lab designee. The lot is then released to the program. No additional dimensional inspection will be performed. This simple step can save a week or two in BATC's overall production cycle, based on the schedule of the BATC Dimensional Lab that's bypassed using delegated inspection.

BATC is not alone in adopting this approach. Many high-end manufacturers have similar programs. BATC hopes to develop the program into a "dock to stock" program so that it can also be implemented to jobs that are placed directly to the supplier, not just those supplying parts when the in-house machine shop is overloaded.

In the end, the benefits of delegated inspection to the OEM are clear.

• The manufacturer realizes significant cost savings by eliminating the need to maintain test equipment, facilities and personnel.
• There is no need to undertake an extensive search for qualified personnel to perform precise inspections.
• The guaranteed quality of delivered materials removes the inspection step from the manufacturer's process, streamlining the entire system.

A key factor that makes it possible for Faustson to perform delegated inspection is our premier inspection facility, which is fully compliant with MIL-I-45208A, MIL-Q-9858, MIL-C-45662, ISO 9001:2000, ANSI, ASCL, ASQC, and ASME. To learn more, contact the professionals at Faustson at 303-420-7422, or visit www.faustson.com.