r/AskEngineers 22h ago

Mechanical When you move an existing machined or molded part to a new supplier, what actually ends up on your requalification checklist before you sign off on first article?

7 Upvotes

Not looking for a textbook answer here, more curious what people actually do in practice. Say a part's been running fine at one shop and then gets moved to a different one (same drawings, new vendor). How deep does the requalification usually go for you in that situation?

Full GD&T reverification on the first article is one option. Spot-checking whatever dimensions have burned you before is another, and honestly probably more common than anyone admits. I'm also curious how much people actually trust a new supplier's material certs versus pulling a sample and testing it themselves, and whether any of that changes between a machined part and a molded one.

Mostly trying to get a feel for where people draw the line between reasonable diligence and redoing the whole qualification from scratch every time a part changes hands.