I'll try not to make this one of those smug, "told-you-so," kinds of columns seen in various industry publications since the dot-com boom turned to dot-com gloom.
What does a contract manufacturer do when its biggest customer says its parts don't measure up? That was the question faced by Hughes Bros. Aircrafters Inc. (Southgate, CA).
The changes in ISO 9000: 2000 are creating a trickledown effect. AS/EN/JIS Q 9100: 2001, Quality Management Systems--Aerospace--Requirements has been aligned to reflect the title change of ISO 9001: 2000 Quality Management System--Requirements.
Tolerancing will not necessarily determine if a good part or a bad part will be produced, but it can help determine if the final assembly is going to be in tolerance as opposed to the individual parts themselves.
MicroTool (Colorado Springs, CO), supplier of advanced robotic alignment equipment to the semiconductor industry needed to find a way to collect and combine data quickly and accurately.
Of all the measurements taken on metal parts, from conveyorized production-line items to specialized, one-of-a kind parts, a company's greatest concern stems from a surface roughness measurement that has varied by a millionth of an inch.