Layout
Surface plate
Height gaging and full dimensional layout for first articles and anything with a tight datum scheme.
Home/Quality
Quality
Every job is inspected to your print, by a program written for your part, and the records stay on file long after the order ships.
How we inspect
Inspection is
a scheduled
operation.
Inspection is its own operation on the routing for a job, planned, scheduled and costed like turning or milling. We have a dedicated inspector with his own bench and gaging, and the hours on the job to do it properly.
That is layered on top of what happens at the machine. The machinist checks the first piece before running the rest. The setup sheet says which features actually matter on this part. Final verification happens after any secondary processing, not at the machine.
More than one person looks at a critical dimension before it leaves the building. On low-volume work there is no long run to catch a drift, so a second set of eyes is how you catch it.
How it works
A program written
for your part.
When a new component comes in, we write an inspection program for that customer and that part: which dimensions get checked, how often, with what gaging, and by whom.
01
Print review at quote
Before we price the job, someone reads the drawing for tolerance stacks, datum schemes, surface finish callouts and features that will be hard to gage. Questions get asked at quote time, not after the parts are cut.
02
Inspection plan built
Critical characteristics are identified and written into a customer-specific inspection form: what gets measured, at what frequency, and to what limits. First-article and source-inspection requirements get built in here.
03
First article
Piece one comes off the machine and gets laid out against the drawing before the rest of the order continues. If a feature is off, the fix happens at the machine while the setup is still standing.
04
In-process checks
The operator gages at the defined interval and records readings on the form. This is what catches tool wear before it turns into a rejected part on your dock.
05
Final verification
Finished components are checked again after all secondary processes, because heat treat and plating move dimensions and the print applies to the part you receive.
06
Records scanned & archived
Completed inspection forms are scanned and archived by production run. If a part fails in the field down the road, we can pull the actual measurements from that run.
Documentation
What ships
with the
order.
Tell us what your receiving department, your customer or your auditor needs and it ships with the order.
| First article inspection reports | Dimensional layout of piece one against the released print |
|---|---|
| In-process inspection records | Recorded readings from the run, by characteristic |
| Material certifications | Mill certs traced to heat number on purchased material |
| Certificates of conformance | Written statement that the order conforms to the drawing and PO |
| Heat treat & plating certs | Process certifications from the sources we manage |
| Archived run records | Retrieval of inspection documentation from prior production runs |
How we
measure.
Bores
Bore & I.D. gaging
Bore gages for the press and bearing fits that have to go together on your floor.
Threads
Thread & ring gages
Go/no-go verification on threaded features, including ACME and specials cut to customer drawing. The gages themselves check against masters.
Control
Gage control
Thread gaging is checked against master gages, and readings get written on the form for the run.
On tolerance
We read the print before we price it, and we say what it will take to hold.
If a tight tolerance on a clearance feature is costing you money for no reason, we will ask whether it has to be there. If a feature is beyond what our equipment holds reliably, we say that at quote time, before you have a schedule built around us.
Quoting a tolerance you can’t hold buys you a late part and a hard phone call.
Bring us the hard print. Send the drawing with the tolerance you are worried
about and we will tell you, before you order, how we would hold it.
Affiliations
Where we stand in the trade
National Tooling & Machining Association
NTMA membership keeps us current on training standards and apprenticeship programs, and in touch with other shops in the trade.
Business Council of Alabama
We take part in the state’s manufacturing community: the workforce, the suppliers and the customers we build for.
Audit us on a part.
Start with one component and see what ships back, and what ships with it.