We’re excited to share that we’re in the process of getting AS9100 certified here at Focused on Machining! As we build our reputation as a leading aerospace manufacturer, this certification will allow us to make parts for aircraft that house or transport humans.

Being AS9100 certified means following a strict set of quality management system requirements designed specifically for the high-stakes aerospace industry. 

In addition to building our aerospace customer base, we’re proud to show customers in all industries that we’re the best Colorado CNC machine shop around. We’re always willing to jump through hoops to better ourselves—and our customers reap the benefits. 

Today, we’re pulling back the curtain to reveal exactly what we’ve done to prepare for AS9100 certification and what these changes mean for our customers. 

Preparing for AS9100 Certification at Focused on Machining

Here’s a look at some of the upgrades we’ve made internally during the AS9100 certification process: 

• Tightening up our targets. Guaranteeing on-time delivery, exceptional product quality, and a low scrap rate is nothing new for our Denver machine shop. But we’ve tightened up our targets more than ever. And we’re tracking, reporting, and auditing these goals regularly to hold ourselves accountable. We even created a new target to speed up how quickly we confirm orders once they’ve been placed.
  

• Implementing a new inspection process for receiving materials. This new process dictates how we identify and segregate materials in-house. We’ve always incorporated some identification and segregation measures. But now we’re being exceptionally diligent with these efforts. There’s no more intermingling of materials like there once was. We also have a segregated shelf in our shop where we send all materials that we can’t immediately certify or trace.
  

• Streamlining how we provide inspection data to customers. With our new process in place, we can easily provide any level of inspection data our customers need. Whether it’s one feature on every part, all features on one part, all features on a couple of parts, or all features on all parts, we can get the information they need with a couple clicks of a button.
  

• Installing a new CMM. We recently finished calibrating our new CMM, which is even better quality than the machine we were previously using. We now have the capability to inspect parts at a higher level of accuracy than ever before. 

When We Better Ourselves, We Become Better for Our Customers 

How do the changes we’ve made impact our customers? It’s a great question, and we’re more than happy to answer it: 

• Full documentation of inspection capabilities. Previously, if a customer didn’t require First Article Inspection or other documentation, we’d check their parts to ensure quality but didn’t create formal documentation. Now, we document everything. If you come to us later in the process looking for a report you didn’t request initially, we can provide it quickly and easily.
  

• Better material traceability. We’re intent on reducing non-traceable materials as much as possible. If you ever want to know the details about a material, we can get you certifications showing the mill it came from, the chemical makeup, where it was made, and more.
  

• Proficiency at machining complex parts. Tired of other shops no-quoting you? We make complex parts other shops don’t want to make, and work with challenging materials they’d rather not deal with. We love parts that have 20+ features. And if your tolerances need to be tighter than industry standards, like ​+/-.0002”, we’ve got you covered.
  

• Higher on-time delivery rate. We know how critical lead times are for our customers, so we aim for an on-time delivery rate of 95% or higher. The bottom line is that you can always expect us to be on time. If for any reason we aren’t, we’ll analyze our processes to see what went wrong and figure out how to prevent it from happening next time.
  

• Leaner and more accurate quoting. We have extremely robust processes in place to help us achieve our 5% scrap rate target. If we end up with even a few bad parts out of 100, we identify how we can fix these mistakes going forward. That way, when we make those same parts again, we can be even more precise and consistent. Maintaining a low scrap rate allows us to be lean and accurate with our quoting, both in terms of time and material. 

Stay tuned for more updates on our AS9100 certification progress! In the meantime, if you’d like to work with one of the best machine shops in Colorado, go ahead and request a quote!