When working with military products, there are limits to the types of components you can use. Sheet metal manufacturers may be required to work on engines, airframes, space vehicles, ships, and land or underwater vehicles.
Because this type of work requires an innovative approach to creating parts, there are specific certification requirements for military products.
ISO Quality & Design Compliance for Military Standards
This section will outline ISO quality and design standards including:
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AS 9100
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ISO 9001:2008
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ISO 9001:2015
Military materials may include tubes, sheet metal, bars, plates, and extrusions. The products and raw materials used must all be AS 9100 certified, as these standards comply with the latest technology.
All materials should also exceed the customer's requirements outlined in ISO 9001:2008 for military and commercial equipment use. The materials and all products and services should also meet the requirements of any regulatory agency.
Compliance with ISO 9001:2008
With ISO 9001:2008 there are specific requirements to create and manufacture these parts. They need to be consistent in order to meet the customer’s satisfaction and meet regulatory requirements. They should also help to improve a system or enhance it per the customer’s request and any regulatory requirements.
Updated ISO 9001:2015
This section will explore:
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What differs from ISO 9001:2008
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Working with parts for the military
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Certification specifications
With the updated ISO 9001:2015, the additional changes include quality management systems requirements. These help to ensure that products and services are consistently provided. The products and services are applicable to any organization regardless of size that works with the customer and a regulatory governing agency.
When working with metal fabrication and industrial enclosures for the military, these projects require metal fabrication work for prototyping and short-runs for defense-related work, outer space, underwater, or rugged terrains.
All necessary certification for military defense, and space contracts include adherence to:
Welding certifications should include:
Custom Fabrication Only a Few Can Handle
Metal materials that are created for the military require specific welding, custom fabrication, and precision machining to support technologically complex parts required for the U.S. Government.
Make sure your sheet metal fabricator has experience and certifications to back up its claims. Critical jobs require a critical attention to detail.
Rapid manufacturers design and manufacture large quantities of metal or plastic parts every day. All manufactured parts vary in size and physical appearance, and prototype parts, especially, may be unique in the world. However, it can be very challenging to manufacture these plastic or metal parts without deviating from the original design intent. Ensure reasonable tolerances to adhere to correct size and shape. Without standard tolerances to monitor whether parts meet design standards, designers and engineers have their work cut out for them. Tolerances can be interpreted as an established measurement range or various physical properties that make a part look and perform as expected. Tolerances can be in the form of size, appearance, texture, color, etc. It turns out that tolerances are very important in the design and manufacture of CNC machined parts. To make it easier and faster to design and manufacture parts, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) proposed the ISO 2768 tolerance standard. ISO 2768 is generally divided into two categories, ISO 2768-1 and ISO 2768-2, where ISO 2768-1 deals with linear and angular dimensions, while ISO 2768-2 focuses on the geometric requirements of various features. The ISO 2768 international tolerance standard helps engineers and designers simplify the design and manufacturing process by defining acceptable variation ranges between nominal dimensions and other dimensional values that qualify for fit. In this article, we will discuss the details of ISO 2768 to help you better understand this tolerance standard.