Additive manufacturing supplier risk mitigation
Abstract
The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has established a quality assurance framework to mitigate additive manufacturing (AM) supplier risk. AM has expanded applications in almost every industry by offering a reduction in weight, lead time and likely cost; however, due to the rapid expansion of the AM industry, standards, requirements and procedures are not yet sufficient. This leads to a lack of consistent part qualification and variability in the supplier qualification process. To mitigate this, a cross-disciplined group authored a supplier quality requirements document for performing supplier audits and approvals. This requirements document has been a foundation for defining a quality framework, containing additional requirements and policies, to build AM parts for flight. This paper further explains JPL’s tactics and methodology in establishing that quality framework and requirements document.
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Author's Biography
Sarah Zerga is a quality assurance engineer in the Office of Safety and Mission Success at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is best known for its innovative Mars rover programmes, with Curiosity being the latest. Sarah currently works on the Quality Assurance for Additive Manufacturing (AM) team tasked with defining JPL’s approach to building quality additive manufactured parts for flight projects. Sarah has been integral in developing JPL’s AM supplier evaluation and auditing processes, AM inspection methodologies, and quality checkpoints to embed into the production flow. Sarah has successfully co-led the development and release of the JPL specification defining the process for requirements flow down and evaluation of AM suppliers. In addition to supporting JPL’s Quality Assurance AM needs, Sarah has helped design parts for additive manufacturing, participated in the witnessing and verification of JPL AM production, and supported various additive manufacturing materials research tasks. Sarah earned a Bachelor of Science degree in materials engineering from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and began working at JPL in July 2017. While at Cal Poly, Sarah studied how chemical composition variations of additively manufactured Hastelloy X could lead to near wrought metallurgical properties.
Citation
Zerga, Sarah (2019, December 1). Additive manufacturing supplier risk mitigation. In the Journal of Supply Chain Management, Logistics and Procurement, Volume 2, Issue 2. https://doi.org/10.69554/DBAM7420.
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