Quality starts at raw material incoming inspection and continues through every production stage. Every lot ships with documentation. Customer-required acceptance plans (AQL, CTQ-based, statistical sampling) accommodated with no extra lead time. Below is the operational detail behind our ISO 9001 / IATF 16949 / UL Recognition certification stack.
Material moves through 8 sequential inspection gates from raw silicon to finished component. Failing any gate triggers either a corrective process step or scrap — never "process exception" or "let it through with a deviation."
| Gate | Unit | What's Measured | Decision |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Incoming Raw Material | XRF + sieve | Purity, particle size | Accept / reject lot |
| 2 · Synthesized Powder | PSD + BET + XRD | D50, BET, phase content | Accept / reject lot |
| 3 · Forming (Green State) | caliper | Green-state dimensions | Accept / rework |
| 4 · Post-Sintering | caliper + density | Shrinkage, density | Accept / scrap |
| 5 · Grinding | CMM + profilometer | Tolerance, Ra | Accept / re-grind |
| 6 · Lapping (Precision) | Talyrond + profilometer | Roundness, Ra ≤0.02 μm | Accept / re-lap |
| 7 · Functional Test | electrical, thermal | Cold/hot resistance, cycle life | Accept / reject |
| 8 · Final + Packaging | visual + photo | Visual defects, packaging | Accept / hold |
Every production lot ships with a Certificate of Conformity (CoC) — the contents vary by product family but follow a consistent template. Below is the typical content for our 5 major product families. Custom CoC formats accommodated for customers with specific quality requirements.
UL Recognition reference + CE marking + per-unit electrical resistance (cold + insulation) + dimensional inspection report + cycle-life qualification data + visual inspection sign-off.
ABMA grade verification + per-ball roundness measurement (statistical sampling per ABMA protocol) + dimensional inspection + density verification + Ra surface finish measurement + lot photo.
Dimensional inspection per drawing (CMM report) + material grade verification + surface finish + tolerance compliance per spec. Statistical sampling for production lots, 100% inspection for prototype lots.
PSD (D10/D50/D90 via laser diffraction) + BET surface area + chemical purity (XRF) + phase analysis (XRD) + bulk + tap density + loss on ignition.
Chemical purity certification + particle count (per cm² @ 0.3 μm via SEM scan) + dimensional + surface finish + thermal/electrical characterization where applicable. Optional 3rd-party SGS/TÜV/Intertek verification.
Customer-specific CoC formats accommodated — including PPAP (Production Part Approval Process) for automotive, ITAR awareness for aerospace, ISO 13356 biocompatibility for medical. No extra lead time for custom CoC.
No quality system delivers zero defects forever. What matters is how the supplier responds when a field failure happens. Below is our standard response process — applied across all production customers.
Our Italian pellet stove OEM partner has received 7 years of BLK igniter supply — 180,000 units/year, zero recall events, field failure rate consistently below 0.3% per year. When quality concerns arise (always less than 10 units in any given batch), root cause analysis is delivered within 5 business days. This is the operational expression of our ISO 9001 + IATF 16949 + UL Recognition certification stack — not paper, but daily work.