How FORGE works.
FORGE is being built as a defense-grade manufacturing and test operation. That phrase only means something if it names processes. These are ours, stated as what is running today and what is a build-out target, so a customer, auditor or teammate can hold us to them.
Quality management, stated honestly
Our quality system is being built to the AS9100 standard from day one: documented processes, configuration control, and records that survive audit. AS9100 certification is a build-out target tied to the FORGE facility coming online; we will publish the certificate when a registrar issues it, and not a day before.
COTS-to-flight, as a process
Screen, characterize, qualify, document. Commercial components enter a defined qualification workflow: incoming inspection, environmental screening against the mission envelope, characterization data captured against acceptance criteria, and a traceable data package delivered with every article. Target cycle: months, not years. Cycle-time claims are design targets until published runs back them.
Test you can trust
Vacuum optical characterization is the capability gap we exist to close. Build-out targets: vacuum-to-vacuum optical test, thermal-vacuum environmental screening, and NIST-traceable calibration on every instrument in the chain. Interim work runs through established third-party metrology partners, and we say so on every data package.
When something is wrong, we write it down
Nonconformance reporting, root-cause corrective action, and customer notification where required. Test data is never altered. Anyone in the building can stop work on a safety or integrity concern, and the stop is thanked, not punished.
Suppliers are part of the system
Flow-down requirements on quality, anti-trafficking and information handling ship with our purchase orders. See Supplier requirements.