THE MAJOR AMENDMENTS TO THE FASTENER QUALITY ACT OF 1990
The FQA, signed by President Clinton
on June 8, 1999, includes a number of amendments to the original legislation
passed in 1990 to make it more focused and less burdensome. These include:
- COVERED FASTENERS AND QUALITY ASSURANCE SYSTEMS
Fasteners covered under the FQA are defined as limited to bolts, nuts, screws
and studs (having a nominal diameter of 6 millimeters/0.25 inch or greater),
or direct tension-indicating washers that are through-hardened (or meet a
consensus standard that calls for through-hardening) and manufactured to standards
and specifications of consensus standards organizations or government agencies
that require a grade mark.
Many fasteners are exempted from coverage including those:
- that are part of an assembly;
- that are ordered for use as a spare, substitute, service or replacement
part unless that part is in a package containing more than 75 of any such
part at the
time of sale or that part is contained in an assembly kit;
- produced and marked as ASTM A 307 Grade A;
- produced in accordance with the ASTM F 432 standard;
- specifically manufactured for an aircraft if the quality is approved by
the Federal Aviation Administration or by a foreign airworthiness authority;
- manufactured in accordance with International Organization for Standardization
(ISO) 9000, 9001, 9002 or TS16949; Quality System (QS) 9000; or other fastener
quality assurance system defined by the law; or
- manufactured to a proprietary standard.
To encourage the use of quality management systems such as QS 9000, fasteners
are exempt from the FQA if they are manufactured in a facility using such
a system.
If an accreditation organization chooses not to follow ISO guidelines for
registration and accreditation, they may submit documents to the NIST director
that establish their own guidance/requirements for (1) accredited bodies to
register manufacturing systems as meeting FQA quality assurance requirements;
(2) accreditation of testing laboratories; and (3) approval of accreditation
bodies to accredit testing labs.
- REDUCED PAPERWORK
To reduce paperwork recordkeeping burdens, companies are allowed to transmit
and store electronically all records on fastener quality provided there are
reasonable means of authentication of the source of the document and reasonable
protection against alteration.
The record required for a covered fastener will be the record of conformance
that identifies the fastener by description, lot number and the manufacturer;
and includes other information defined by the law.
- HOTLINE
To combat the manufacture, sales or distribution of fasteners that are fraudulent
under the FQA, the Commerce Department will establish and maintain a hotline
for reporting alleged violations of the law. A system will be created to evaluate
reports to the hotline. All credible allegations would then be forwarded to
the Attorney General.
- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The text of the amended FQA as well as the text of the February 1999 Commerce
Department study of the FQA can be downloaded from the World Wide Web at www.nist.gov/fqa.
Last updated: 06/29/99
Contact: inquiries@nist.gov
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