Nadcap is a standard born out of a collective need of aerospace and defence companies to have a coherent and universal quality standard against which to hold themselves and their suppliers accountable and a vast array of special processes are carried out to these standards globally, daily. Aerospace industries clearly understand the value of services compliant to this standard and Nadcap Measurement & Inspection Standard AC7130/4, specific to Three-Dimensional Structured Light Scanning Systems is the newest of such standards. The PRI (Performance Review Institute) who oversee the implementation of Nadcap ‘can foresee these processes as the wave of the future..’ and they are not the only ones. Using the world’s only supplier of this service is therefore simply bringing 3DSL in line with your existing processes.

Where Nadcap may be a standard driven by aerospace and defence companies, it is equally applicable to any industry application where high measurement quality and traceability is paramount. Holding your scanning supplier to the highest standards, regardless of industry can only ensure you receive the highest quality product. Every part across all industries are susceptible to the same influences of temperature, fixturing and obscuration of supplier processes. Using a Nadcap accredited supplier eliminates all of these issues.

Temperature is so important to geometrical product specification and verification that it was the first consideration of the International Organisation for Standardization when producing standards. ISO1 specifies a reference temperature of 20 °C, which applies to the design and inspection of products. Temperature variation often contributes a large proportion to an uncertainty budget unless suitably controlled. 3D scanning, like other measurement systems, is susceptible to this and has the other contributing factors such as variation in air density and airflow which can impact the measurement results.

When you receive a scan file or report based on scan data can you truly say than not only do you know all the contributing factors in the result but can prove it? The combination of the GOM ATOS systems and a Nadcap accredited supplier leaves you in no doubt as to the route your part has taken, the environmental conditions under which it was measured, how it was held and the quality parameters of every measurement that contributed to the final result. With such a service you can access every calibration artefact used to verify your measurements and trace their link to national and international standards. You could recall the long-term statistical stability of the system by accessing long term data of standardised tests on a calibrated object.