Can an assembly plant be added to the QPL without a plant inspection?
No, the main purpose of having the DCMA QAR do the inspection is to determine if the manufacturer has provided the assembly plant with specific instructions/processes to assemble their product, and that the facility has the equipment/personnel to perform the assembly using the manufacturer’s instructions. Since assembly procedures are different for every manufacturer and product, inspections based on other products or other manufacturers are not acceptable. Also, since it is common for assembly plants to process parts for multiple companies, they need to have adequate ways to separate the processing of different manufacturer’s products, and that is something the QAR would/should check when they are there.
