Looking into Nadcap for the first time

[blackholequasar]

Greetings, all!

I am completely unfamiliar with Nadcap, however we are a supplier for government rated projects and I do believe they will be requiring this in the coming months. I'd like to be prepared for this by looking into the requirements of Nadcap, but I find myself more confused the more I look on Google! We are a turnkey PCB manufacturing facility that does both flex and rigid boards in addition to cables and harnesses. Right now, I believe we will be looking into the Cables & Harnesses requirements primarily. We are ISO 9001 certified, though I did read that doesn't mean diddly to Nadcap haha

What is a good starting point? I would like to order the AC7121 for harnesses, but I'm not sure what revision is current or a good place to order it? (I've seen my manager order an ISO document from a funky website and got a guideline instead of the actual standard) I appreciate any insight you can offer! I'm from a medical device world, so this is all new territory to me; but I'm up for the challenge

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Hopefully you know how to deal with FRUSTRATION and have been immunized against chronic and acute bureaucracities....
https://media.p-r-i.org/assets/2020/06/05072019/Nadcap-New-Supplier-Welcome-Pack-2020-June-1.pdf

 

[blackholequasar]

Hopefully you know how to deal with FRUSTRATION and have been immunized against chronic and acute bureaucracities....
https://media.p-r-i.org/assets/2020/06/05072019/Nadcap-New-Supplier-Welcome-Pack-2020-June-1.pdf

Thank you, Sidney. I think I'm due for my bureaucratic booster though haha I appreciate the reading material!

 

[Sidney Vianna]

There are several threads here about Nadcap. When you deal with a monopoly, you are in for a lot of fun.

 

[Big Jim]

An incestuous monopoly at that.

 

[Kronos147]

AC7004 is the one for QMS requirements, from what I remember.

Nadcap, and PRI is the biggest SCAM in aerospace. Like stated previously, a monopoly. I worked on a checklist, and led an organization to be the first company to get certified. What a waste of time. To make one product, that NO ONE ever orders, because they prefer the old MS number.

Nadcap put a checklist together (I'm guilty too, I was on the committee). One of the things they insisted upon was a salt water immersion test for passivation. The ASTM stated that this test would produce false positives on martinsitic steel. I provided this to the committee, and offered salt spray test as an alternative. The committee voted(?) or PRI insisted upon the salt water immersion test.

During the initial audit, we had to explain we only had a router for how we would make the stupid part. He wanted to see it happen. We were only able to demonstrate making the MS part, where we asked for the salt water spray test for passivation (per AMS-2700, which is allowed). And we were issued a non-conformance. So ignorant.

 

[blackholequasar]

AC7004 is the one for QMS requirements, from what I remember.

Nadcap, and PRI is the biggest SCAM in aerospace. Like stated previously, a monopoly. I worked on a checklist, and led an organization to be the first company to get certified. What a waste of time. To make one product, that NO ONE ever orders, because they prefer the old MS number.

Nadcap put a checklist together (I'm guilty too, I was on the committee). One of the things they insisted upon was a salt water immersion test for passivation. The ASTM stated that this test would produce false positives on martinsitic steel. I provided this to the committee, and offered salt spray test as an alternative. The committee voted(?) or PRI insisted upon the salt water immersion test.

During the initial audit, we had to explain we only had a router for how we would make the stupid part. He wanted to see it happen. We were only able to demonstrate making the MS part, where we asked for the salt water spray test for passivation (per AMS-2700, which is allowed). And we were issued a non-conformance. So ignorant.

That sounds so frustrating... The issue with Nadcap, it seems, is that people are all but forced into it. And if you want to somehow prepare ahead of time to see if you have any gaps in your process, you have to pay someone. Our customer hasn't enforced a Nadcap requirement but has heavily hinted that going into the new year we may require it. I really hope that we can establish our long-term quality with them as proof we don't need it, but sometimes that doesn't matter. Ugh, what a party.

 

[mattador78]

We were supposed to have been looking into it this year but then COVID turned up so we put it on the back burner as a cost we didn't want. I had been warned it quite finicky and anal. Reading Kronos's post makes me glad we've held of for now i don't think i could have coped with that sort of scrutiny plus my normal job plus being on the shop floor running processes.