Just over five years into his metal finishing career, Steve Allen was given one of the most daunting tasks anyone in the field could imagine.
Steve AllenHis challenge was preparing Elite Metal Finishing in Oceanside, California, to attain Nadcap accreditation in chemical processing. In the finishing industry, this effort is not for the faint of heart, especially for someone relatively new.
“ I knew this was going to be a huge challenge,” says Allen, who started at Elite in 2022 after working four years at Tech Plate in Orange, California, a company owned by one of his best friend’s father.
The decision was made to pursue Nadcap—National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program—accreditation in 2023. In late 2024, Elite earned the chemical processing certification after many months of blood, sweat, and tears and following rigorous planning steps.
Earning Nadcap to Maintain Customer Base
Dan Rose, the president of Elite Metal Finishing, decided to pursue Nadcap after the shop lost a major customer who moved its entire operation from the San Diego area to Mexico in early 2023. Word soon followed from another of Elite’s top customers that they would require Nadcap chemical processing accreditation, which sealed the decision to start the process.
“We saw more customers drop off, unfortunately,and that sped up the process,” Allen says.
Rose says he wanted to get his company better aligned with what customers are coming to expect from finishers.
“The drive for Nadcap certification is about aligning with industry expectations, improving processes, enhancing market positioning, and ensuring that quality and compliance are consistently maintained,” he says. “Achieving Nadcap certification differentiates a company from its competitors. It signals to customers that the company meets high-quality standards, giving it a competitive edge when bidding for contracts or seeking new business.”
Dan RoseBy August 2023, Allen had just been promoted from Shipping, Receiving, and Final Inspection Manager to Quality Manager to replace a retiring manager. He was soon tasked with the Nadcap project.
“ I was here a couple of months, and Dan started to invite me into the managers' meetings that we would have periodically,” Allen said. “The decision to work on the accreditation was made in January 2023 when I was still in my previous position. Looking back on it, I probably wasn't the most qualified, but I appreciate Dan allowing me to take on such a challenge.”
The Performance Review Institute (PRI) describes Nadcap audits as “a rigorous technical assessment of compliance with customer requirements and industry standards, conducted by industry experts. “ This non-profit trade association administers industry-managed critical process accreditation programs globally.
“He was the best resource we could have had,” Allen says. “He has a deep knowledge of what Nadcap requires for chemical processors, so we lucked out having him as our consultant.”
Earning Nadcap certification is expensive—both in fees and manpower expenses—but Rose was unconcerned.
“Not at all,” he says. “The return on investment is monumental.”
After almost a year of the process, Allen has these suggestions for finishing shops that might be considering obtaining Nadcap certification.
Best Advice: Hire a Consultant
Steve Allen leads the Elite team through Nadcap reviews.With an initial audit scheduled for April 2024, the Elite team hired a consultant to help them prepare for the inspection. They also asked for the audit to be pushed back to July.
Allen suggests hiring someone with demonstrable experience and knowledge of Nadcap and metal finishing. The team brought on Hung Nguyen, a consultant who has worked with shops since 2017, to prepare them for audits.
“He was the best resource we could have had,” Allen says. “We made such a good choice choosing him, and he has worked in metal finishing shops his entire career. He has a deep knowledge of what Nadcap requires for chemical processors, so we lucked out having him as our consultant.”
Review Your Company's Quality Manual
Allen says a good step is to review your shop’s quality manual, its quality procedures, work instructions, and forms against a Nadcap checklist.
If needed, seek clarification from the consultant or PRI and ensure all documents are controlled with revisions and dates.
Steve Allen reviewing parts with Elite team members.“Assuming you already have a quality manual in place with forms, quality procedures, and work instructions, the big thing is that even though you have them, you need to go checkpoint by checkpoint on the Nadcap checklist,” Allen says. “Does it answer explicitly yes or no for that requirement? And if there's any doubt, or if it's no, you need to revise that document to ensure it does.”
Shops will receive a “finding” during an audit if it doesn't. These findings are divided into two types, minor and major, which can potentially impact the parts being processed.
An example of a minor finding is a missing label for a tank, which unfortunately happened to Elite when one of the labels fell off a tank, and they didn't catch it during the audit.
“Those are usually easy fixes, but you want to avoid the major ones,” Allen says. “Going question by statement in those checklists for Nadcap is important, which you'll do during a self-audit, which you must submit at least 30 days before your on-site audit.”
Allen also says having the consultant conduct the self-audit with you is important.
“It’s best to have the consultant provide written observations and have the consultant visit the shop multiple times if possible,” he says. “Hung told us what he saw in all his observations and followed up with an email and in writing.”
That led to some items that Elite needed to address as soon as possible and others that eventually needed to be addressed. Nguyen visited the shop at least four times before Elite’s on-site audit.
“There's no way you can do this yourself,” Allen says. “It's a beast, and there are many times where I felt like Winston Churchill during the blitz."
“When you hire a consultant, you want to get them inside your shop because that'll be the best way for them to see anything that is out of sorts or needs to be corrected immediately,” Allen says. “With the self-audit with your managers, there may be times where you have a certain interpretation of a requirement, and you and management are all in agreement on that interpretation, but in actuality, that's not how the PRI staff or the auditor interprets it.”
It's good to have someone come from the outside — such as your consultant, Allen says — and clear those issues up.
“If you have any doubt on a requirement, you should get with your consultant to clear that up,” he says. “Or you can email PRI for clarification.”
Create An Action Item List
Once the self-audit is complete, Allen says it is important to delegate needed tasks to the shop staff to get them corrected. He says delegation is important.
“There's no way you can do this yourself,” Allen says. “It's a beast, and there are many times where I felt like Winston Churchill during the blitz trying to tackle these checklists and ensure the shop complies."
Understand the Importance of Training
Training is critical to a shop's overall success, and Allen says Nadcap has a unique approach to accreditation.
For new procedures, work instructions, travelers, and the use of equipment, it is important to have operators practice using equipment and performing work instructions in front of you so you can verify that you are flowing down the Nadcap checklist requirements properly.
For example, the specification you are certifying may require quality tests other than visual inspection, which your inspection personnel may not perform correctly. The auditor will want to see at least a few quality tests performed, and you must ensure that your personnel are trained to administer those tests properly.
While some requirements may seem redundant, Allen says objective evidence is required for compliance, such as with forms, procedures, and work instructions. He says training may be one of the hardest parts of the certification process.
“You will have many quality procedures, work instructions, and forms in place already, and then there's probably going to be some changes that you need to make,” he says. ”You can't just change a form that one of your coworkers is filling out daily; just change it on them and expect them to fill it out properly.”
Allen says that is one thing he learned going through this process: anytime work instruction is revised, anytime a quality procedure is revised, there should always be training conducted on that revision.”
PRI will also require that you submit documented training as part of objective evidence for an audit finding.
“It is important to have objective evidence that the preventive maintenance is being done,” he says.
Part of that is explaining to every shop employee why they are working on Nadcap accreditation and why it is an important step for the growth of the company and the quality they are providing,
“Some employees may want to know the whole meaning behind this and why management is so gung-ho on this?” Allen says. “I think explaining to your coworkers and people on the floor the importance behind Nadcap and training is vital. I tell my coworkers, ‘You're going to be touching and working on parts critical to the safety of aircraft and people on those aircrafts and critical to the safety of our military members.’ It takes on an all-new seriousness, and I think it helps set the tone for Nadcap.”
Preventative Maintenance and Housekeeping
Chemical storage must be handled properly, including segregating unlike chemicals, keeping the line clean, and preventing and cleaning corrosion and spills.
Allen says any spillage on the tank rims, for example, should be cleaned up immediately, and that extends to the lab areas.
“The lab needs to practice good housekeeping, especially with beakers and glassware, and ensuring that everything is clean,” Allen says. “Every auditor from PRI is different, and you might have an auditor with a chemistry background, for example, or who's worked in a lab or at a metal finishing shop. If they start seeing dirty glassware, they will question your whole titration process in your lab.”
Allen says a good preventive maintenance program is critical on the plating line. During their audit, he says Elite learned much about adding preventive maintenance and created more forms to check daily, weekly, and monthly.
“It is important to have objective evidence that the preventive maintenance is being done,” he says.
Chemical storage was another major housekeeping issue for Elite, and they received assistance from supplier Miles Chemical and Dan Zinman, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, on getting things in order.
“Miles Chemical is a great supplier for us, and Dan helped us create a list of acids, bases, organics, and non-organics, and how they should be segregated,” Allen says. “One finding that almost every shop gets during an audit is mixing acids and bases and them being too close to each other. It’s little things that can turn into big issues.”
Eliminate Human Error in the Lab
A final step in preparing for the Nadcap audit was examining a shop’s lab procedures closely and working to eliminate any chance of human error, especially in subjective titrations.
Allen cites a titration that identified a specific solution color endpoint. Colors can be subjective, as one person in the lab might see blue, and another might see green.
“That can be devastating if you're not following those requirements.”
“If it's in your budget, get an auto titrator because that way, you can titrate to a certain pH endpoint, and the pH value is objective compared to a color endpoint,” he says. “Some chemicals will list two methods of titration, with one being by a color endpoint and one being by a pH endpoint. If possible, you always want to use the pH method because missing an endpoint brings doubt into your whole process. How can we trust that the concentrations of your solutions are accurate?”
Periodic Testing Going Forward
Shops must review specifications to ensure they do the required periodic tests, including reviewing a customer's requirements. While some tests are only required if specified in the contract, Allen says knowing your customer’s testing requirements is important.
Also, knowing the difference between an invalid or failed test is important. For context, Allen says an invalid or failed test is if one of the required periodic tests does not meet the specification requirements. An invalid test, for example, is a determination made through an investigation that the samples for the test were not processed correctly or the samples were discrepant material (i.e. pits on the samples). A failed test is a determination through an investigation that determined the test was not invalid. A failed test devastates a shop because Allen says it cannot process any NADCAP parts until that periodic test is passed as stated in a specification like MIL-DTL-5541F.
Another example is MIL-PRF-8625 Revision F, as it is now in its second amendment, and Allen says shops should know the requirements of that specification besides the workmanship standards.
“It's a game-changer,” he says.
“Light fastness is only required if your customer specifies it in the contract terms and conditions or the PO,” he says. “But reviewing the specs is important because that is one of the major things an auditor will look at; if you're not doing the required periodic testing, that's a major finding.”
Conducting the correct periodic test and reviewing a customer's terms and conditions is essential. Allen also recommends ensuring that a shop’s contract reviewers closely monitor purchase orders.
“That can be devastating if you're not following those requirements,” he says.
Passing the Nadcap Audit
Steve Allen says passing Nadcap was great, but “This is the work that never ends."Elite Metal Finishing passed the Nadcap audit in July 2024 but needed to correct a few findings. They also had a few issues where small items were overlooked or the auditor needed to clarify.
The findings required Elite to perform a root-cause analysis and correct the issues within 21 days. They also had to provide PRI with a root-cause preventative action plan for review and approval. If the plan is not approved, a second cycle occurs, and the shop has only a week to respond.
“The timeline gets much shorter,” Allen says.
Elite had to go through a fourth cycle on one issue before successfully resolving it, passing the audit fully, and earning accreditation. In November 2024, the PRI inspectors finally gave Elite their certification in chemical processing for Nadcap.
Rose says earning the certification is a tremendous advantage for Elite Metal Finishing.
“It's a game-changer,” he says. “Nadcap is recognized internationally, meaning certification can help a company expand its reach and work with global partners, suppliers, and customers in the aerospace, defense, automotive, and other industries. By earning and maintaining NADCAP certification, Elite will stand out in the marketplace, enhance product quality, reduce operational risks, and ultimately improve its bottom line.”
But passing the audit didn’t end there for Elite’s quality program. Allen says they want certification in electroless nickel, passivation, and dry film processes. Their scope of accreditation includes type II and type III anodizing, chem film, and liquid paint.
“Once the audit is done, that's really when the work begins,” Allen says. “This is the work that never ends. It was a great relief to pass our initial audit and to receive our accreditation. Still, it's up to us to hold up our end of the bargain and remain compliant with the aerospace requirements, and we intend to do that every day. Hopefully, we can be a one-stop shop for our aerospace customers.”
