Napoleon Engineering bearing inspection capabilities now include first article inspections

Napoleon Engineering Services (NES Bearings), industry leading ISO9001:2008 and AS9100C certified experts in custom bearing manufacturing, bearing inspection, bearing testing and custom bearing test rig manufacturing, has announced the expansion of its bearing inspection capabilities to include first article inspections (FAI) per customer or AS9102 standards.

As the largest independent bearing inspection facility in North America, NES Bearings routinely offers a number of in-depth bearing inspection programs, designed to provide OEMs with the added confidence in the reliability of their manufactured bearings. FAI is a comprehensive, independent and fully documented quality control process, used by aerospace manufacturers to verify that the delivered first run bearing of a supplier conforms to all required physical and mechanical specifications, as well as ensuring that bearing production and tooling have been completed via stable, repeatable processes. Such physical and functional inspections of manufactured bearings verify that prescribed production methods are capable of producing a part that is within tolerance and manufactured according to engineering drawings, specifications, purchase orders, planning documents, or other industry or customer best practices. FAI is used to further verify that associated documentation and tooling are capable of producing parts and assemblies that meet these requirements.The FAI process itself is repeated when engineering design enhancements, tooling, or manufacturing process changes invalidate the initial inspection results.