BOBIER METROLOGY SOLUTIONS
Accuracy - Productivity - Precision
First Article Inspection
Why is First Article Inspection Important?
At the start of a production run the first piece produced, must be measured 100% to ensure the machining, stamping, casting process, and/or mold is producing a part that dimensionally conforms to CAD or Print. This process is known as First Article Inspection or "FAI".
First article inspection is crucial to the manufacturing process. If the FAI step is over looked or skipped, then the manufacture runs the risk of producing every part incorrectly or more commonly known as producing "scrap". Sometimes the scrap parts can be reworked, but this costs money ranging from 10% to 50% additional labor. This all could be avoided by conducting an FAI to ensure the correct part was being manufactured in the first place.
If CAD was used to program the CNC equipment, inspection on a different system, such as a CMM, would allow opportunity to find the errors in the CAD or conflict between different geometric elements. This separate inspection, by an independent dimensional laboratory facility, would also discover any errors in GD&T interpretation made by the CNC programmer when the part was initially programmed.
First Article Inspection or more commonly known as "FAI" is the stamp of approval to proceed with the manufacturing process or the product.
At the start of a production run the first piece produced, must be measured 100% to ensure the machining, stamping, casting process, and/or mold is producing a part that dimensionally conforms to CAD or Print. This process is known as First Article Inspection or "FAI".
First article inspection is crucial to the manufacturing process. If the FAI step is over looked or skipped, then the manufacture runs the risk of producing every part incorrectly or more commonly known as producing "scrap". Sometimes the scrap parts can be reworked, but this costs money ranging from 10% to 50% additional labor. This all could be avoided by conducting an FAI to ensure the correct part was being manufactured in the first place.
If CAD was used to program the CNC equipment, inspection on a different system, such as a CMM, would allow opportunity to find the errors in the CAD or conflict between different geometric elements. This separate inspection, by an independent dimensional laboratory facility, would also discover any errors in GD&T interpretation made by the CNC programmer when the part was initially programmed.
First Article Inspection or more commonly known as "FAI" is the stamp of approval to proceed with the manufacturing process or the product.