First Article Inspection (FAI)

Our QA technician performs a thorough inspection of the first pieces off of the production line (or out of tooling) against your requirements. This prevents issues from being repeated in large numbers during production.

Many Asian manufacturers want to get mass production done as soon as possible in order to get paid – that’s where their interest lies. This can lead to the skipping of steps such as a First Article Inspection (FAI) which, if implemented at the start of mass production, can save you from disaster should issues be found.

A common mistake is to assume that your perfect pre-production sample will mean that mass production will be perfect. This is often not the case, as small, fixable, issues such as poorly set equipment, poorly positioned/loaded materials, poor assembly methods, and others, can quickly snowball once production has begun. But many unlucky importers don’t realize there’s even a problem until they have an entire batch of defective products.

If those issues are detected before shipment, the factory may resist re-working that batch. If there is no further inspection at the factory, the cost is even higher.

According to the Society of Automotive Engineers, the FAI provides “objective evidence that all engineering design and specification requirements are properly understood, accounted for, verified, and documented.”

Just after mass production begins, or during a pilot run, a Sofeast quality technician who is familiar with your product requirements takes the first piece(s) off the line or off a piece of equipment (sometimes off new tooling) and performs a comprehensive inspection on it.

The objective is to assure that the mass production process is starting the right way and is making good products.

This will usually be planned for with your manufacturer and they will work with the technician to build the FAI into the start of production on the day that they attend their factory.

What does it cost?

Pricing is tailored to each project based on its scope and complexity. Typical costs vary depending on product type, supplier location, and required support.

For a first article inspection, we charge 299 USD per man-day in major areas of China, India, and Vietnam (and extra travel expenses apply in other places).

Learn more about our pricing and cost structure

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First Article Inspection FAQs

Every FAI project has its own unique aspects, but, in general, the process is as follows:

Our QA technician goes to the factory. At the same time, the factory is preparing for manufacturing the first few pieces based on their mass production methods, equipment, and operators.
Our QA technician checks if there are any open issues, specifications the manufacturers didn’t understand or couldn’t meet, etc.
Production starts slowly, the first few pieces come out.
Our QA technician checks those pieces against your specifications and the approved pre-production sample(s), in more depth than other in-process quality checks.
If some issues are found, we inform the factory staff right away so they can do proper containment of defective goods and start implementing corrections. In most cases, production is halted until the point of cause is identified, a root cause is addressed, and another round of FAI (which can be part of the same booking if the turnaround is very quick) shows the results are effective.
If issues are found, we also try to understand why the factory didn’t catch those issues earlier (if that’s applicable).

We are often asked to conduct an FAI on tooling, mostly for plastic injection molding. In such FAIs, we typically check:

The structure of the first parts off tooling
Visual aspect on the parts (looking for common defects such as flash, burn mark, short shots, sink mark, visible weld line, flow mark, warping, crack mark, white mark, drag mark, mismatched mark, etc.
Whether parts are automatically separated from the runner, and whether they get “stuck” to the mold
The dimensions of the part (typically, full dimensions on 1 shot, and only critical dimensions on 5 shots)
If applicable, ease of assembly of the part(s)