The Performance Review Institute (PRI), a not-for-profit organization that develops performance standards and administers quality assurance and accreditation for transportation industries, has added eight new subscribing government agencies/contractors to its Nadcap program, bringing total subscribers to 32. Originally an acronym for National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program, the industry-managed program is now simply known as Nadcap. The latest to join Nadcap are Bombardier, EADS, Latecoere, Liebherr-Aerospace, Parker Hannifin, Snecma, Sonaca and Zodiac. PRI is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It has offices in London, from where it coordinates all European operations; and in Beijing, China; and Aichi, Japan, for the aerospace industry in Asia.

The program does audits of aerospace industry suppliers’ special processes, including quality systems, chemical processing, coatings, composites, electronics, fluid distributions systems, heat-treating and nondestructive testing. Nadcap is said to improve product quality by focusing on overall supplier performance. It also reduces the number of audits required each year, which lessens the annual cost of auditing both to the supplier and the prime.

In other news from PRI, Vought Aircraft of the U.S. recently became the second and latest Nadcap subscriber to participate in PRI’s Nadcap Users Compliance and Audit Program, a method of self-certification piloted by Honeywell in 2003.