Quality & Certifications

Three layers

Three layers, and one rule that binds them.

Every guarantee-critical dimension is verified by at least one layer. No exceptions, and no “the operator checked it.” The rule is enforced at packet release, before anyone cuts anything: a packet does not pass its gates until every critical dimension has either an in-machine probe check or a named feature on the inspection plan.

Note 2 — What follows is the quality system as designed and in force on every routed job. First-pass yield, escape rate and disposition latency are recorded against it and publish on The Ledger under the definitions there.

In-machine probing

At the shop, during the cut

Work-coordinate verification, in-process gates, and final critical dimensions, run from the probe routines in the packet. Results are captured automatically rather than transcribed.

AuthorityAutomatic gate. An out-of-tolerance result halts the job at a first-piece hold; it does not become a judgement call at 11 p.m.

Shop inspection

At the shop, after the operation

Per the packet's inspection plan: named instruments, named features, and a sample plan that is either 100% or AQL by tolerance class. The report template arrives pre-filled with nominals and tolerances.

AuthorityThe shop attests to the result. Praetore dispositions any nonconformance. The shop never has to decide whether a part is acceptable.

Central verification

Praetore or partner metrology

First article on every new packet revision, skip-lot audits, all tight-class work, and any customer-required source inspection.

AuthorityCentral QC is the final authority. There is no appeal to the schedule.

A spindle-mounted touch probe with a ruby stylus poised over the top face of a stepped cylindrical aluminum part, the part seated on a rectangular fixture block, coolant still beaded on the machined surfaces. — FIG. 01Layer one: in-machine probing, run from routines the Job Packet authors. An out-of-tolerance result halts the job at a first-piece hold rather than becoming a judgement call at the machine.

Photography on this site is illustrative of the process described. It is not a photograph of Praetore's own operations.

The coverage rule

Every guarantee-critical dimension is verified by at least one layer.

It is a release gate, not an aspiration. It is also the reason the date can be sold with money behind it: a promise about when something ships is only as good as the promise that what ships is right, and both of those are checked by the same packet.

How the date is backed

Who holds disposition authority

Today, central QC is Graham Mumm, the founder. A company this size should say so rather than write “the quality department” and let you picture a floor of people. When that changes, the name on this line changes with it.

First article

A first article at every shop, every time the packet changes.

First article is required on the first run of every new packet revision at every shop. Approval releases that packet-and-shop pair for production quantity, and it is recorded in the Capacity Ledger as a qualification credential rather than as a filed document nobody reads again.

Delta-FAI

Why rerouting is fast without being reckless

A packet already proven at one shop gets a reduced first article at the next, covering setup-sensitive features only. That is the mechanism behind moving a job mid-week: the work travels because the verification travels with it, not because we decided to trust the second shop.

Format

AS9102 on request

AS9102 format whenever a customer asks for it; our internal format otherwise, at the same rigor and against the same inspection plan. The format changes what the paperwork looks like. It does not change what gets measured.

Nonconformance

The first question is what the packet got wrong.

How a company behaves at a nonconformance tells you more about its quality system than any certificate does. Ours is built on a specific asymmetry: a shop failure fixes one job, and a packet failure, once found, can be fixed once for every shop in the network forever. So we look for the packet failure first — and when it is ours, we say so and we pay for the retry.

Any layer flags it, the job stops there

The job pauses at that operation. A nonconformance report opens in the portal with photos, measurements, and the packet context attached automatically — nobody retypes anything, and nobody keeps cutting while it is sorted out.

Central engineering dispositions it on a four-business-hour standard

Four business hours is the standard, and disposition latency is recorded against it. The disposition itself is one of three: use as is, with customer approval where the print requires it. Rework, issued as a packet-amended rework operation — rework is packetized like everything else, so the shop is never improvising a fix. Or scrap.

Root cause defaults to the packet

The first question is always what was missing or wrong in the packet, and the answer ships as a packet revision. Shop-attributable causes — a skipped probe, a wrong tool loaded against the list — are recorded factually in standing. But the system is built so that most failures are process failures we can fix once, for the whole network. That asymmetry is the entire point of centralizing the engineering.

If a defect reaches a customer, containment runs on a 24-hour standard

Twenty-four hours is the commitment. Affected lots are traced through the packet, lot, and shop chain, the customer is notified proactively rather than after they find it, and the corrective action is published inside the company. Escape rate is a headline company metric, not a quality-department metric.

Traceability

Every part is one unbroken chain.

The whole recall and containment system is this chain plus the discipline to keep it intact. One query answers the only question that matters at two in the afternoon on a bad day: what else could be affected?

01Packet rev

02Shop

03Machine

04Material lot + cert

05Tool list rev

06Probe logs

07Inspection report

08Ship date

Calibration and instruments

Every instrument a plan references has to be in current calibration. As shops come on standard, that will be verified at onboarding, attested annually, and spot-checked on visits, and Praetore will circulate master gauges through the network for correlation checks each quarter — cheap insurance against one shop's “good” micrometer quietly drifting the whole standing system out from under us.

Instrument IDs and calibration dates are recorded on the inspection report itself, so the chain above reaches the gauge and not just the number it produced. That is also what an AS9102 Form 2 asks for: the measurement device, per characteristic.

What ships with every order

01Material certifications for the lot the part was cut from, traced to the part.
02A dimensional report per the packet's inspection plan — the features, instruments, and sample plan stated up front rather than chosen afterward.
03First article in AS9102 format on request; internal format otherwise, to the same rigor.
04The full traceability chain retained per order, so a question two years from now has an answer that is not somebody's memory.

Insurance

We author the engineering, so we own the outcome.

When Praetore writes the CAM, designs the fixture, authors the probe routines, and specifies the inspection, the liability a marketplace pushes down onto its shops sits on us instead. That is deliberate — manufacturer-of-record accountability is the product — and it changes which coverages actually matter.

Two lines matter for this structure. Product liability, because we are the manufacturer of record for parts that go into machines, vehicles, and energy equipment. And errors and omissions on the engineering itself, because our engineering is the product and a bad packet is a professional error, not a workmanship one. E&O is the line most shops carry none of, because their engineering is not the product. Ours is.

At onboarding, shops evidence general liability and workers' compensation, with Praetore named as an additional insured on routed work.

We do not carry performance or payment bonds today. If a program requires one, say so at the quote and we will tell you plainly whether we can obtain it.

Note 3 — Certificates of insurance go to customers on request and to shops inside the production agreement. We do not print a coverage schedule or limits on a web page; ask for the certificate and you get the current one.

SUPPLIER QUALITY

Have a supplier-quality questionnaire? Send it.

We will answer it as it is written, including the questions where the answer is no. A supplier that answers a quality survey with adjectives is telling you something, and it is not the thing they meant to tell you.

hello@praetore.com Upload a Part

RUN A SHOP?

Nothing on this page asks you to write a quality manual.

The inspection plan arrives inside the packet, pre-filled with the features, the instruments, the sample plan, and the nominals. You execute it and report honestly. Root cause defaults to our packet, not to your operator: that is a term of the production agreement, not a courtesy, and the shop is indemnified against customer claims arising from packet content. It is also the whole reason this model can use shops that were never going to get certified.

Apply as a Shop

What the standard actually asks of you — vises you already own, jaw blanks, and probing. No hardware purchase, no fees, ever.

Quality is centrally owned and distributed in execution.