quality management
Total Quality in everything that we do!
AMFAS takes a total quality management approach. Not only do we focus on consistently meeting customer requirements, but also on continuous improvement and risk mitigation. We practice the Peter Drucker adage, “What gets measured gets improved.” The quality measurements for flight critical aircraft components are different than automotive engine parts, but they are not less demanding. We have years of experience and success supplying these industries, as well as other, uniquely demanding applications. Customer perception is the ultimate determination of product quality, thus we train our employees and suppliers to systematically seek out the voice of the customer and procedurally integrate this feedback into the design, manufacturing and inspection processes. By empowering employees and suppliers to contribute to overall quality, we have a history of success, with key customers rating AMFAS their #1 supplier. For the last three years, our ISO 9001 audits, conducted by Perry Johnson Registrars, have resulted in ZERO findings.
Every worker is trained to focus on process thinking, in other words – what their part contributes to the final output to be delivered to the customers. With the knowledge that a customer receiving the output from a process can be either internal or external, we are able to develop integrated systems of smaller processes adding up to larger processes. Each person plays a crucial role in the performance of each operation, no matter how small or large. Each of these processes is continuously monitored and corrections are made as needed to keep performance within expectations. Root Cause Analysis is taken very seriously; 8D Corrective Action Reports are used extensively throughout the fabrication and supply progressions.
Certification
A unique engineering service that AMFAS offers is our ability to manage the certifications and agency approvals for the products we supply. Almost every component used in a product that must meet UL, CSA, VDE, FCC, UPC, FDA requires that the component itself meet specific safety standards. This comprehensive service offered by AMFAS includes assistance in obtaining certifications of a product, facility, process or system to industry-wide standards and requirements recognized by these agencies. To help ensure the long-term advantages of certification, we work closely with customers to help manage the tactical surveillance and re-evaluation using defined requirements, processes and schedules for reassessment or re-evaluation. We work with the certification and approval agencies to obtain component or sub-assembly approval for use in the end product. Anyone with experience with agency certification will understand that the effort and cost can be quite involved and time-consuming.
Quality Training
AMFAS conducts training of our suppliers on how to manage quality for specific commodities, processes and industries. We pass along the details of the process to all the relevant stakeholders. Much of this effort is augmenting our off-shore factories’ knowledge of quality assurance disciplines and helping them to develop an effective quality plan which guarantees that the product and processes are consistent with our customer’s requirements in terms of:
- Root Cause Analysis – RCA.
- Business Process Mapping.
- Failure Mode and Effects Analysis – FMEA.
- Safety Plans
- PPAP and APQP training.
- ISO 9001 Auditing
We assure alignment of quality expectations through education across the supply chain.
Supplier Audit
Supplier Audits are a routine part of the AMFAS certification to ISO 9001. We maintain the audit of the supplier base so that our customers are not burdened with the time and expense. We always welcome our customers to visit and audit the suppliers at their convenience.
Suppliers are thoroughly vetted during the selection process. Each supplier has passed an audit and signed an NDA prior to receiving an RFQ. We also conduct annual surveillance audits similar to ISO, lot inspections prior to shipment, random inspections as needed, and third-party metallurgical verification
Risk Management
Every part poses a certain amount of risk. Nearly all AMFAS supplied parts must undergo a production part approval process, commonly referred to as PPAP. The production part approval process is a standard used to formally reduce risks prior to product or service release. There are two main purposes of this risk analysis. First, PPAP provides evidence to our customers that their engineering design record and specification requirements are properly understood by all of the relevant parties in the chain of supply. Second, PPAP demonstrates that the manufacturing process has the potential to produce a product that consistently meets all requirements during an actual production run at a quoted production rate. This assessment is beneficial in its helpfulness to maintain product (design) and process (manufacturing) integrity of parts. Risks are identified early in the development process so they can be understood prior to locking down for production. It reduces the cost of post certification. AMFAS’ risk evaluation improves the overall quality of the product and customer satisfaction. Our production part approval process improves development speed-to-market giving AMFAS’ customers an advantage in the market place.
AMFAS mitigates the risk to our customers choosing to do business with global suppliers. We coordinate all aspects of the business agreement to supply product or processes to our customers. We maintain both Liability and Property Insurance for all agreements. This is not a common business practice for many overseas manufacturers and is often overlooked.
