An uncertainty budget is similar to a financial budget in the type of information it can provide. But unlike a financial budget where every element is in dollar terms, the uncertainty budget has to deal with various elements and convert them into linear terms, such as millionths of an inch or microns, when doing gage calibration.
Gentex Respiratory Products (Rancho Cucamonga, CA), designer, developer and manufacturer of aviation oxygen masks and positive pressure breathing systems, wanted to solve porosity issues and reduce scrap rates on a crucial aviation life-support component.
“The most important thing that I have been preaching my whole career is the human side of quality is at least as important as the technical side of quality,” says Jimmy (Jim) L. Smith, Operations Quality Manager for Caterpillar Inc.’s Mossville Engine Center (MEC) in Mossville, IL, and Greenville, SC.
Smith, Quality Magazine’s 2007 Professional of the Year, leads by example. Not only does he spend his days at Caterpillar, he spends many hours volunteering to teach others about quality.
Today, the optical comparator is a reliable factory stalwart that workers find easy to understand and use, whether on the shop floor or in the inspection room. But they are a far cry from the basic shadowgraph. The transition from purely observational optical measurement to direct digital analyses began about 20 years ago. Modern comparators are equipped with better optics, readout devices, software interfaces, geometric measuring capabilities and screens that range in size from 12 inches to 40 inches.
Through the years, there have been many innovations in in-line, noncontact measurement, not the least of which is the variety of measurement system configuration options offered to customers. To be a world class, in-line, noncontact measurement supplier, a company must offer several combinations of configuration in order to meet a customer’s ever evolving process control needs.
From the pursuit of AS 9100 registration to lean manufacturing, companies are continually looking for the edge that will distinguish them from the competition. For AS 9100 registration, one significant advantage that is often overlooked is the audit score.
A major cause of overtesting of spacecraft, aerospace and flight hardware during random and swept sine vibration tests is associated with differences between the mechanical impedance of the shaker and mounting fixture, and the standard practice of controlling the input acceleration to the frequency envelope of the flight data. The result is artificially high shaker forces and responses at the resonance frequencies of the test item. These high forces can damage expensive payloads.
In aerospace projects, there are no “do overs.” Even minor errors can prove expensive or deadly. NASA’s $125 million Mars Climate Observer burned up in the Martian atmosphere when the manufacturer gave NASA English measurements for thrust, rather than metric units. A loose piece of foam cost seven shuttle astronauts their lives.
AS 9102 has been the aerospace industry standard for first article inspections for more than five years. An aerospace supply chain quality engineer will likely have two comments about AS 9102. The first will be that AS 9102 has brought much needed discipline and consistency to the first article process. Then they will say that AS 9102 compliance requires considerable effort and commitment of resources.
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