The supplier shall obtain First Article Approval (FAA) for this assembly or its sub-components when a line item is included on this purchase order that requires the delivery of the final test report. The absence of this line item indicates that no FAA has been contracted or is required for this purchase order and a previous approval satisfies the Technical Data Package (TDP) requirements for FAA.

First Article Approval will be granted upon successful completion of a First Article Inspection (FAI) and a First Article Test (FAT). Shipments under this purchase order prior to FAA are not allowed. FAI and FAT shall be conducted in accordance with the requirements of the TDP drawing, Critical Item Specification (CIS), and this purchase order.

Additional supplier instructions for FAI are contained within GDLS Supplier Instruction QCS 83-4. A test plan and test schedule shall be submitted to GDLS prior to the start of test.

Test failures are to be reported to GDLS within 48 hours (2 working days) of the incident. The supplier will provide GDLS with written failure analysis for approval and test program disposition (stop/continue test, retest). Test reports shall be prepared per MIL-HDBK-831 and be submitted to GDLS as scheduled.

Any supplier-initiated changes to component design, materials, manufacturing process or manufacturing location after FAT approval are subject to another FAT at the supplier’s expense. Such changes will be submitted to GDLS for review and FAT impact.