Northwest Aerospace News June | July 2019 Issue No. 9 | Page 45
“After we got that account, we got a call from
British Airways,” Roberts remembered. “They
wanted the same thing, but not quite — and
then we got a call from United, and then Alaska
Airlines, and we were off and running. As
aerospace came in, we started letting some of
our other product lines go. Aerospace is where
most anodizers would like to be.”
For five years, the company thrived, taking on
new aviation contracts and adding employees
and equipment to meet the growing demand.
Then, it abruptly faced an existential threat.
“We were doing a lot of work for Rockwell
Collins, and they announced that they
were only going to use NADCAP-certified
suppliers moving forward,” said Roberts. “We
blindly hired four people to help support the
certification process, not even knowing if we
were going to be able to get it. It was definitely
a leap of faith.”
NADCAP is an acronym for the “National
Aerospace and Defense Contractors
Accreditation Program.” It’s a stringent set
of quality standards first established in 1989
to reduce costs and ensure conformity to the
exacting requirements of the aerospace industry.
Before NADCAP was established, individual
companies had to audit their own supply
chains to ensure that standards were being met,
resulting in huge duplication of effort.
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