Brad bet his boss a year of his salary that an FAI could go from taking a full day to 10 minutes with InspectionXpert

Brad Wright, the Quality Supervisor at Leading Technology Composites, spent years looking for a faster way to create First Article Inspection Reports. He knew that there had to be a faster way to create the reports. Brad and his team pre-fill their First Article Inspection Reports with nominals, upper and lower limits, etc. so that when the part is ready for inspection, all that’s left is to fill out the actual measured results. But with complex parts that have multiple components, GD&Ts with 4 locations, and 100+ bubbles each, it would take his top inspectors 2-3 days to get one FAI ready. 

The final straw came when an inspector had spent a whole day manually bubbling a part drawing, and when they went to review it the next day, the drawing was missing from the file. The bubbles were still there, but something hadn’t saved correctly, and the inspector would have to start over. This wasn’t the first time this had happened either. 

Brad didn't have time to start over. Instead, he called Jason, who had gone to their sister site where they manufacture parts for aerospace. Brad and his manager Laurie went to see how fast Jason was able to create first articles with InspectionXpert. Brad told Laurie that with all the interruptions of having to do other tasks, it would take him a full day to balloon one drawing and finish an FAI, and it would take Jason 10 minutes to do a similar drawing with InspectionXpert. Laurie was skeptical, so Brad said, “Ok, I’m willing to bet you a year of my salary on it." Luckily for Brad, when they came back 10 minutes later, the FAI was ready and Jason had been done for 3 minutes. Brad said, “I knew right then we had to have this.”

Brad went back to his office to get free access to InspectionXpert. He knew they had three big programs coming, with 60 parts each, and that he wanted to be up and running with InspectionXpert before they got those new projects. Brad used the tutorials online to learn the basics of ballooning and creating his report in InspectionXpert. “That first day I was blown away. It was better than I’d expected,” Brad said. 

With InspectionXpert, Brad knew he could bubble all the part drawings and create all the first articles for all three of the new programs in less than a week. Manually, it would have taken 2-3 weeks. He worked with his management team to become a customer, and they now have five people from their quality team using InspectionXpert to create all their FAIs. They’ve been able to stop the shuffling of tasks to accommodate new programs, and their team is able to cross-train on other disciplines. Brad said, “It’s the best thing since sliced bread.”

Leading Technology Composites has two locations in Wichita, Kansas where they manufacture parts for the Aerospace, Personal Protection, and Vehicle Protection Markets.

Quality team: 10 inspectors
Location: Wichita, Kansas