Is anyone familiar with PRI - Nadcap?

[gfox.quality]

Is anyone familiar with PRI - Nadcap? I've been a Quality Manger for an aerospace metal finishing company for over 18 years. I have written Quality Manuals and procedures for it based upon MIL-I-45208; AS9003; and now AS9100. However, due to the implementation of Nadcap by the aerospace Prime Contractors, trying to answer the PRI's auditor findings of nonconformances in our process has been a challenge to say the least. I am familiar with the 5 why's and have been through PRI's Root Cause-Corrective Action, Nadcap Style school and I still can not please the Staff Engineer that reviews my responses. Has anyone experienced the same frustration? If so, what approach have been taken to effectively please PRI?

Thank you in advance for your help.

[Marc]

I moved this aerospace - Not sure which forum it fits best in, though.

Nadcap is the National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program - A condition of Boeing approval. I don't have any direct experience with it. Maybe one of the other folks here does.

I did find this Boeing link: National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program

[Andy2U]

PRI is a nonprofit handeling the approval of special process as flowed down contractualy to the supplier base of the aerospace primes.
Once signed up for an audit you have access to all the applicable internal PRI docs that cover the what , how and such of the audit process and what is required for cause and C/A response to findings. They even provide training in this since it has been an issue that has come up.
Keep in mind that the staff engineer at PRI is acting on behalf of the comitee of prime contractor reps. This comitte (of 5 or so) review the audit and actions comming out of it from both the supplier, auditor and PRI staff engineer. They hold PRI accountable to act correctly on their behalf. The days of getting the buyer from a prime to help you out are gone since the audit now represents the requirements for a much larger group and would impact them all.
If you are really up against the wall on this, have you tried to contact the rep on the supplier advisory board for the comidity you are getting audited on? They may be able to help you "know" what is required or give you some guidance with the best understanding of what you are being audited on.

[Bev D]

Another tidbit of info: as the aero primes move away form special process qualification and auditing (a headcount reduction action) PRI is growing in authority and they are 'flexing their muscles'. They are much more interested in technical quality and rigid process controls than ISO/AS or even QS for automotive. Their auditors and staff engineers tend to be engineers as opposed to auditors. and many were laid off from the primes...some are more picky than others. Teh 'old' days of alternate approaches to satisying a requirement are gone. In fact I once had a conversation concerning teh auditors requiremetns for my companies lot control process. THe auditor was very proscriptive and wanted everything written down on a paper traveler as opposed to in a computer (event tho the computer system could be made far more foolproof than a paper system). My primes (GE and Rolls) and my AS9100 registrar were happy with the system, but it wasn't good enough for the PRI special process auditor...and he had authority over the general lot control system thru a single sentence in teh special process requiremetns doc. I think this is a reaction to the perceived 'looseness' of ISO9000. I also got the same input from our military auditors.

I'm sensing a pendulum swing away from ISO to the more proscriptive quality requiremetns and being audited by all of your cutomers as none of them trust the others or ISO/AS to keep their supply chain in line.

[Wesley Richardson]

PRI is Performance Review Institute. Web page http://www.pri-network.org/
NADCAP is National Aerospace Defense Contractors Accreditation Program.
PRI audits quality systems and many "Special Processes" but often the Aerospace Prime manufacturers also wish to audit the special processes.
The original document for test laboratories was an evolution of the GE Aerospace S400 document. SAE now issues the AS7101, as one of the documents PRI can audit to.

Satisfying an audit deficiency for PRI can be frustrating. What I found is you can talk with one of your Prime Supplier Quality Assurance representatives to get some ideas on what is desired. Note they will not tell you what competitors are doing, nor how to solve the problem, but will often make suggestions that you can apply to obtain the right process or controls on the process. In one case of an audit deficiency, I found that our methods were about 20 years out of date, compared with the available technology. After making the investment, it really did improve our process controls.

Wes

[Wolfe]

I have spent an hour on the PRI.org website that took me to eAudits which explained to me that eAudits was designed to audit suppliers processes to NADCAP standards. Which is fine, but what are the NADCAP standards?

I work as the Quality Manager for a Gage Lab. A company is asking for a detail quote as well as Nadcap accreditation. We are ISO/IEC 17025 accredited (still suffering that headache, thanks A2LA). And whats wrong with the A2LA accreditation. By definition we had to show our competence once already.

[Hershal]

Wolfe,

You are not the first or only one to be required to have both.

There are currently five accrediting bodies that are recognized through the MRA approach for calibration (which I presume you are since you are a gage lab).....IAS, A2LA, NVLAP, L-A-B, and SCC/CLAS.....so far as I know, NONE of which are accepted through the PRI/NADCAP/Boeing system.....even though PRI is a NACLA signatory for testing - but not for calibration.

Interesting huh?

Hershal

[Wolfe]

Originally Posted by Hershal

Wolfe,

You are not the first or only one to be required to have both.

There are currently five accrediting bodies that are recognized through the MRA approach for calibration (which I presume you are since you are a gage lab).....IAS, A2LA, NVLAP, L-A-B, and SCC/CLAS.....so far as I know, NONE of which are accepted through the PRI/NADCAP/Boeing system.....even though PRI is a NACLA signatory for testing - but not for calibration.

Interesting huh?

Hershal

With A2LA being a signatory of ILAC and NAVLAP being a member of ILAC, and PRI-NADCAP being a signatory of NAVLAP then shouldn't PRI-NADCAP recognize an A2LA Accreditation. If not then why not? Then why have the MRA to begin with if no one is going to recognize it.