In answer to the increasing concerns and demands of quality, the MWFA conducted a Quality Inspection Seminar on March 15th. The day began with Henry Chernow of MAE Specialties,
discussing quality and quality inspections. He explained that defective allowance has gone to zero defects. He advised that random sampling should increase samplings to catch potential defects. Overseas manufacturers are becoming more sophisticated and certified to quality management systems than they were in the past.

The group then was taken to tour the Quality Lab at Big Bolt. The plant tour provided an excellent tour for understanding quality as Tom Partridge, Casey McIlhon and staff explained the instruments and procedures used followed by demonstrations of bolt testing. As Casey stated, “The participants were very engaged in the tour and offered some great questions. It was nice to see such genuine interest.”

The afternoon session continued with a presentation by Larry Borowski, President of Greenslade & Company, Inc. Larry discussing Thread Gage Technology. Through calibration and fastener testing equipment product is tested to specification. Larry demonstrated various gages and plugs indicating their importance.

Ifty Ashraf finished up the day with a presentation on PPAPs (Production Part Approval Process). He noted PPAP’s are necessary to determine if all customer engineering design record and specification requirements are properly understood by the supplier and that the process has the potential to produce product consistently meeting these requirements during an actual production run at the quoted production rate. PPAP’s are most widely used in the automotive industry.