Facility qualification and part certification - lessons from aerospace and other sectors

Certification of parts is the final piece in the jigsaw for the exploitation of Additive Manufacturing (AM). In the Aerospace Sector this tends to involve an OEM or Tier One supplier carrying out a point qualification. This usually comprises an all-encompassing specification based on testing data which is usually very expensive. This is audited by the regulator, such as the FAA or EASA. AM production facilities usually seek NADCAP facility approval using the AC7110/14 Audit Checklist and Handbook. One Aerospace manufacturer has set a target of increasing certified AM parts by a factor of twenty by the end of 2019. It is clear that there is currently a large amount of effort ongoing in the Aerospace sector to certify and fly parts, a lot of which is happening under the shroud of commercial confidentiality.

In other sectors a different approach is often used involving a third party, such as Lloyd’s Register (LR). For AM, LR has partnered with The Welding Institute (TWI) to develop AM facility qualification and part certification. This presentation will outline what is being used to certify parts in sectors outside Aerospace. It is based, at least in part, on a transparent six step approach that seeks to facilitate mass adoption of AM, by enabling companies to understand the details of what is required to manufacture certified parts. The aim is to assist in moving AM from ‘cottage industry’ scale to mass production. Guidance notes have been produced that are available and will be updated in 2020.