Quality Documentation: What Ships With Your Order

Every buyer eventually gets burned by paperwork that does not match the parts. This page lists exactly what we can put in a box with your order, what each document actually proves, and what to write on the purchase order so nothing is argued about afterwards.

The five documents, and what each one proves

Material certificates in practice

An EN 10204 3.1 certificate is issued by the mill and is traceable to a heat number. That heat number is what makes the certificate useful: it ties the bar or plate to a specific melt, and it is the thing an auditor will ask you to produce two years later.

Practical points worth settling before the order:

• Whether the certificate must be 3.1 or whether a 2.2 mill declaration is acceptable for non-critical parts.
• Whether you need the certificate for the raw material only, or for the plated or anodised part as well.
• Whether the heat number must be marked on the parts or only on the packaging label.
• Whether certification is needed for every batch or only the first.

Certificates take time to obtain from the mill. Asking for one three days before shipment is how a project slips a week.

Dimensional reports: nominate the characteristics

A “full dimensional report” means different things to different suppliers. On a part with 80 dimensions it can mean 80 measured values on every part, or 80 values on one sample. Both are defensible and they cost very differently.

What we ask for at quotation stage, and what you should send:

• The list of characteristics that matter, using the drawing balloon numbers.
• Whether the report covers one sample per batch or a stated sampling plan.
• The measurement method expected: calliper, micrometer, height gauge, CMM, or surface roughness tester.
• Whether GD&T features need true-position results rather than simple plus/minus values.

If nothing is specified, the default is a report covering the critical characteristics on one part per batch, measured with the instrument appropriate to the tolerance.

First article inspection: the cheapest insurance you can buy

An FAI measures every characteristic on the drawing once, before the rest of the batch is released. It catches the two failures that cost the most: a drawing that was interpreted differently than you intended, and a process that cannot hold a tolerance the drawing demands.

It is worth doing when the part is new, when the supplier is new, when the drawing has changed, or when the part is expensive enough that scrapping a batch hurts. It is not worth doing on a repeat order of an unchanged part that has shipped clean for two years.

Traceability through the batch

Batch records connect the finished parts to the material heat, the machine, the operator shift and the inspection results. When a problem appears three months later, that record is the difference between isolating twenty parts and recalling two hundred.

If traceability matters to your product, say so at RFQ stage. It changes how the material is stored and how the batch is split, and it is difficult to reconstruct afterwards.

What to write on the purchase order

• The exact document list, by name, not “all quality documents”.
• The certificate standard, for example EN 10204 3.1.
• The characteristics to be measured, by balloon number, or the drawing revision that defines them.
• The sampling plan: one per batch, one per 50, or 100 percent.
• Whether documents ship in the box, by email, or both, and in which format.
• The acceptance criteria for a non-conformance, and who pays for rework.

Most disputes about quality paperwork are not disputes about quality. They are disputes about a PO that said “certificates required” without saying which ones.

Our certifications

We hold ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 13485:2016. The certificates, and what each scope covers, are on the certificate page. Ongoing production is inspected at two-hour intervals, and every workpiece is checked dimensionally and visually during and after production.

If your programme requires a certification we do not hold, we will tell you rather than imply otherwise. That matters more than it sounds: an auditor who finds an unearned claim on a supplier’s website will question everything else that supplier says.