PLANAXISPrecision machining / demo

DEMO — fictional range. Local brief only, NOT SENT. No personal data is collected or transmitted.

DOCUMENTS

What travels with a batch.

A machined part arrives with paperwork or it arrives as an anonymous object. These are the documents worth asking for, and what each one actually establishes.

Material certificate
That the material is what was specified, traceable to a heat or batch
Heat treatment record
That the treatment ran, and to what specification
First article report
That one part matches the drawing, dimension by dimension
Datum statement
Which feature the measurements were taken from
Inspection record
That a defined sample was measured against a written method
Surface finish record
That the finish was measured rather than judged by eye
Revision statement
Which drawing revision the batch was made to
Packing record
How the batch was packed, and what it was packed in

An illustrative list for a fictional range. A real programme agrees which documents are required, in what form, and how long they are retained.

The one that is most often missing.

The datum statement. A report that lists measurements without saying what they were taken from cannot be checked by anyone else, and two correct reports can appear to disagree.

Retention is part of the specification.

A record destroyed after a year is a record that will not exist when the question is asked, and the question is usually asked years later.