First Article Inspection Services

First Article reports are normally required after your first production run, once all process development has been competed. A full or partial FAIR should also be carried out if any changes are made to an existing production process. Our FAI reports help you to mitigate risk by verifying your production process is producing conforming parts.

An FAI report is often a customer requirement determined by the relevant quality management procedures, such as PPAP in the automotive industry or AS9100 in the aerospace industry. The FAIR details the conformance of the product to the drawing requirements, giving both you and your customer confidence in the production process.

You should consider conduct a FAIR when:

• Your new production process has been finalised
• You make any change that may affect the form, fit, or function of your product including:
  • Change of manufacturing process
  • Change of inspection method
  • Change of supplier
  • Change to production location

What you can expect from our First Article Inspection service

• Ballooned copies of your drawings (if required)
• Measurement of design characteristics using our in-house dimensional inspection service
• A populated first article inspection report (often referred to as a Form 3 or FAIR)
• Optional csv & pdf reports to support your engineering and manufacturing teams

How we will complete your First Article Report

We will fully inspect your sample part (or a sample from the first batch of parts) against your part drawing requirements. Unless specified, all features will be checked against the associated drawing tolerances by inspecting the part(s) using methods such as CMM inspection, non-contact inspection (3D laser scanning), or hand tools (vernier calipers, micrometers, projectors). Once we have completed the inspection process, we will populate your Form 3 report for you to review.

Last Article Inspection?

If you are modifying an existing production process in such a way that a new FAIR will be required, we recommend completing a Last Article Inspection (LAI) report prior to making any changes. Last Article Inspection reports are completed in much the same way as a First Article Inspection, except as the name implies, the last part (or a sample from the last batch) is inspected. Having both a FAI and LAI report gives you definitive and quantifiable before and after results for your modification.