NADCAP: The NEW Watchdog - Has anyone felt the wrath of NADCAP yet?

[Randy Stewart]

Tom, have you run across the auditors that are a Level III internal auditor for your competitor but your Nadcap auditor yet?
They can be a Nadcap auditor and be a consultant for someone else. Set up their system and then have one of their subordinates do the Nadcap audit on them. Sounds good to me. No conflict of interest there.
However, in their Nadcap capacity, they can't help you answer a question or give you direction on CA.
I had some questions on the ITAR/EAR stuff and called the Staff Engineer for some guidance. He sent me a flyer to attend "his" training session, not associated with PRI, for $600.
Their scam is almost as bad as the Nigerian Prince scam. I think they all could be doing the Sham Wow commercials!
In all my years of auditing and being audited I've never come across an issue like our last NDT audit.
We received an NCR for not having an employee sign the annual performance review. We questioned the validity of the finding due to no requirement to have a signed review. We showed evidence of the evaluation being reviewed with the employee but that wasn't good enough.
So we called the Staff Engineer when our corrective action was not accepted. When we asked to see the requirement for the signature we were told that there wasn't one. So we asked why our CA was rejected. The answer, "We will not accept anything other than a signature". Once again asked where the requirement was, and we were told there wasn't one but the only thing that they would accept was a signature.
Real good use of man power and monies there. Really saving the Primes some funds with that!

It's a no win situation with the suppliers. If the auditors don't find enough NCR's they are reviewed, they could lose their jobs. So they keep those little nit picky findings in their pockets to hit you with. And how can the Staff Eng go against the auditor. If they do it shows that the system is flawed, plus the Staff Eng wasn't on-site. He didn't see what the auditor saw. All they have to go on is the write-up.
Not a good set-up.
I go through their RAILs, it's scary. And the only way you get a say is to spend tons of money to become a voting member. I went to the meetings in PA last year in July. It's real scary!
But what are you going to do? Resistance is Futile, we will be assemilated.

[jonc5150]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the help. Yeah, I was unpleasantly surprised when I saw how much of the checklist was consumed by AMS2750 (and so was the boss when he found out how much it was going to cost him ).

[Johnny Bollocks]

Randy is correct! I found it is all about the checklist. Mind you, our auditor was a rookie, old, small and couldn't handle the altitude of Colorado, therefore was under the weather, but all he really cared about was the checklist. We got hit on a couple of logs. Make sure all of your logs are accurate!!!!! When (if) you have corrective actions, fill them out by their format and give as much objective evidence as you can find. Once the Staff Engineer has accepted your response, it has to be approved by 3 Task Group Members (this is what I've heard). Then you become, "ACCREDITED!" Then all your customers call you up to congratulate you and set up a time when they can come into your facility and AUDIT YOU AGAIN!!!! It's a big, expensive pain in the arse!! We should get some of the Cove people together and start a Regulatory Agency of our own. We could all get rich too!!
On a serious note, I recommend going to a Nadcap meeting, if you are planning to get accredited. There is one, in Dallas, TX, February 16-20, 2009. It will give you insight into how the whole thing works and you can meet all the members of your Task Group (and have cocktails with them). The Dallas meeting will be the second one I attend. That should give me voting privileges for upcoming drafts and revisions.
Good luck to you!

[Slimplynth]

Hello all, I'm a senior quality engineer for a large multi-disciplined aerospace company in the UK.

Previous to my current employment I had 4 years experience with Nadcap.. most of which was painful. However the one thing we did learn was PPPPPP is deffinitely the order of the day as far as Nadcap is concerned. "We" is important too.. most companies assume its a quality function. If your Prime Customer is breathing down your neck and you fail Nadcap.. The company MD will soon catch on that it's his problem too.. getting the management on side (internal pollitics permitting) for production is a big help.

The checklists are very direct and I would say that at least one person should be responsible for answering it well in advance of the audit (3-6 months preparation). I would never farm out the checklists to someone who should know the answers because its in their section and accept a string of circled YESs and NAs either. I found the best way was to dowwnload the relevant check list and copy the text into a word document.. then include under every question a hyperlink to the relevant objective evidence.

With most of the checklists there is a section regarding Preventitive Maintenance.. Im at a bit of a loss with this one. We have an external contractor that performs TUSs and thermocouple replacement IAW 2750D. The operators also complete their daily/weekly.. check sheets to confirm the ovens are in good working order. This forms the basis for our Preventitive Maintence work instruction.

At our last Audit an observation (not an NCR) was raised by the auditor, he believed that really we should be doing more.. like paying an electrical contractor to basically test switches on air circulating ovens and salt baths... then create a report to say the equipment is fine.

This seems a little OTT to me... and is my only Nadcap criticism, One idea I did have was to monitor the temperature of the motors used to circulate the air.. but as for switches.. The red/green and yellow lights are a bit of a give away.. switch broken should equal no light.

if anyone has any ideas on this I would definitely appreciate them.

[andygr]

"He sent me a flyer to attend "his" training session, not associated with PRI, for $600. "
Randy did you contact this number and report it? IF not then as with all things in QA you are doing nothing more than condoning it by your inaction. If you feel that the actions are not ethical call 724 772 1616 Bill Wagner or Arshad Hafeez woulb be your contacts high up in the food chain.
As far as teh auditors
"could lose their jobs."
Been one ( now am answering the questions they ask) and can say for the task groups I worked with as an auditor there defenatly is not a quota system. The way it is srtuctured there is absoutly no incentive for the auditor to write a finding as it is more work and potential agraviation for their set pay. If the finding is downgraded or voided it goes against their compensation. But there is is no down side to not writing one as far as compensation.

Do not get me wrong there are some realy stupid things in the Nadcap system some bad task group members, staff engineers and auditors as well as suppliers. In a perfect world why would we need QA at all? everyone would do what they should do with out any audits at all. I much prefer a single source of suffering than having every prime come in through out th year with their individaul pet peaves of the day to drive me nuts.
I make my noise and fix what I can and play the game through the rest.

Oh hell with the snow and ice today I have now fallen off my soap box and can not get up. See you with the spring thaw

[andygr]

Slimplynth
That raise the bar approach is an issue that is currently going through the Nadcap Management Councile as some thing that has to be eliminated. It is outside of the scope and Mandate given to PRI by the Primes.

I would not do anything about an observation that does not benifit my orginization. If it is not a finding then I am in compliance. Some task groups have begun to have observations included in eauditnet. This is not the original intent and needs to be fought against. I doubt that they have clean coverage in their procedures even to do it. Will have to mention that to my corprate contact so that he can review it as part of the primes audit of PRI and see how they like to answre findings against not folloing their own procedures.

To many firms roll over with PRI. Push back with in their system as long as you can suport your position. Staff enginers answere to task groups and task groups answere to the managemetn councile. Use their appeals process and make it a formal answere instead of a phone conversation.

[Randy Stewart]

Andy,
I agree, this snow sucks! I'm tired of it.
Yes we did log a complaint, for whatever good that will do.
The Achieving Excellence Together logo is a crock. You can't get answers or inputs to correct issues because that would be "helping". The last auditor we had flat out told me that he was looking "extra" close because "I wasn't an NDT guy". I'm just an engineer, not an NDT guy.

If any of you do Passivation you know that some specs require a validation test - 24 hour Humidity, Copper Sulfate, etc. Some specs do not require a validation test, the ASTM specs for example.
I found that we were doing a test for all specs and removed it from our flows and travelers due to not being required and just added cost.
It turns out that the company had received an NCR for not validating the Passivation process while following the spec and to clear it they had to do the Copper Sulfate test, as a minimum.
When I asked why I was shown the NCR. That auditor will forever be known as "Where I Come From". He wrote up the NCR because, "Where I come from we always test".
And to clear it they had to put in a test even when the specification didn't call for one.

[Randy Stewart]

I would not do anything about an observation that does not benifit my orginization.

Be careful how you approach this. I have seen an Observation become an NCR and almost a nonsustaining NCR! If the auditor feels that you ignored it, you'll be punished.