26 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK Carmen Vertullo Lead Trainer, Fastener Training Institute® FASTENER TRAINING INSTITUTE ® 5318 East 2nd Street #325, Long Beach, CA 90803 TEL 562-473-5373 FAX 661-449-3232 EMAIL info@fastenertraining.org WEB www.fastenertraining.org HYDROGEN EMBRITTLEMENT FASTENER FAILURE INVESTIGATION – WHAT THE SUPPLIER MUST KNOW This is the third in a series of Link Magazine articles on Hydrogen Embrittlement (HE) in Fasteners. It would be a good idea to read, or reread, the previous articles on HE Risk Management and HE Relief Baking before reading this article on HE Failure Investigation. It is never a pleasant experience to be on the receiving end of a HE failure investigation. As a supplier, you may be conducting the investigation, your customer or end user may be conducting the investigation, or some other third party may be doing it. Regardless of your role, there are certain things that you should know and do to stay out in front of the process and help keep your mind at ease. Any fastener failure or quality issue that causes a rejection, rework or a recall can be exorbitantly expensive for the party responsible for the fastener. When it comes to HE, an actual failure is not necessary to trigger any of these actions. Simply not processing the parts properly, or not being able to prove they were processed properly, can cause your customer to lose confidence in the parts and demand that they be replaced. A fastener failure investigation is always more difficult, time consuming, and less definitive when any of the parties involved do not have an established Quality Management System (QMS), or when their systems do not function well. The effectiveness of the QMS’s involved becomes readily apparent to the investigator when requested documentation and process control instructions are requested. If these requests are met with speed and completeness, the QMS is probably effective. If there are delays, missing or incomplete documents, no organized document retrieval process, or finger pointing about who is responsible for the documentation; then TECHNICAL ARTICLE chances are the QMS is not effective. This does not bode well for the investigation. After 25 years of conducting and reviewing fastener failure investigations I have established a few guidelines and suggestions that will be useful for the supplier in their conduct of, participation in, or simply observation of, the investigation. While these guidelines are meant for HE failure investigations, many of them apply to any kind of fastener failure or quality problem. The Twelve Guidelines for Fastener Failure Investigation We will use the word “bolt” or “specimen” to refer to the item under investigation, but it may be any type of fastener or component, threaded or not threaded. [1] IF YOU ARE A SUPPLIER MAKE SURE IT IS YOUR BOLT - This is actually the first rule of failure investigation for the fastener supplier. It is not uncommon for an OEM or MRO to use several sources for the same exact product. Any particular item may be supplied to those sources from the same manufacturer or importer, and even from the same exact lot. If you cannot tell for sure if it is your bolt or not, or if you cannot tell what lot it came from, you may want to look at ways to improve your lot control system. That is a subject for a future Link Magazine article. If it is not your bolt, this does not mean that you cannot help. In fact, this may be an opportunity to distinguish your company from the competition, especially if you are among two or more suppliers of the product. Keep in mind, it is also an opportunity for your competition to distinguish themselves. CONTINUED ON PAGE 136
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