Use-as-is and repair

These two dispositions are where the system carries the most risk and draws the most audit attention. Use-as-is and repair dispositions need the approval of the organization responsible for the design, or someone it has delegated in writing, and they need the customer's authorization where the contract requires it, before the product is released. That is not optional, and it is not satisfied by asking once a year: check the contract for every case.

Where to look in the contract

• The purchase order and its quality clauses (often a numbered list on the back or in an attachment).
• The quality agreement or supplier quality manual the purchase order brings in.
• The drawing notes and the specifications the drawing calls up.
• Program-specific requirements, which may be stricter for flight safety or critical items.

Record the answer and where it came from on the MRB record: 'Yes, purchase order quality clause Q7', not 'yes'. If nobody has checked, the record says 'Not yet checked', and the product does not move.

What a technical justification contains

• The requirement and the actual condition, with numbers.
• The function of the feature in the assembly and in service.
• The calculation, analysis or test that shows the part still meets form, fit and function, at worst-case tolerances.
• Whether a safety-related or key characteristic is affected, checked against the drawing, the customer's lists and your product safety assessment (D01).
• Interchangeability with conforming parts.
• Other product that could be affected the same way.
• For a repair: the repair method, its instruction and the inspection afterward.

Asking the customer

Use the customer's own concession or repair request form where they have one. Send the requirement, the actual values, the quantity and serials, the cause as far as known, the justification and the proposed disposition, and ask for a reference number. Request it the day the board decides. Follow up at ten working days, call the customer's engineer at thirty, and at sixty ask whether to re-disposition. Log every follow-up in the notes column of D20, so anyone can see the history.

A request that gets answered

Where the customer has no form of its own, this is the content we send. Fill it in from the MRB record; everything the customer's engineer needs to decide is on one page.

When the answer arrives

Record the reference and the date on the MRB record and both logs. Release the product only when the record's release line reads Yes. Write the authorization reference on the traveler, the certificate of conformance and, where practical, the part label, so the record and the part find each other years later. If the customer refuses, the board meets again on that case: rework, repair under a different method, or scrap.

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