🔥 NADCAP
NADCAP Accredited Special Process Sources for Des Moines, IA Buyers
NADCAP is the aerospace industry's accreditation for special processes, the operations like heat treating, plating, and nondestructive testing whose quality can't be confirmed by inspecting the finished part. In an ag-and-structural metro like Des Moines, accredited special-process capability is thin on the ground, which shapes how a buyer assembles a defense or aerospace supply chain across central Iowa and the wider Midwest. This page explains how to find and verify it.
NADCAPAS9100ISO 9001
Most manufacturing defects can be caught by measuring or inspecting the finished part. Special processes are the exception. When you heat treat a steel forging, anodize an aluminum bracket, run a penetrant inspection on a weld, or apply a chemical conversion coating, the critical quality attributes are buried inside the metallurgy or the process chemistry where no dimensional check can find them. A part can look perfect and still be wrong if the furnace ran cold or the bath chemistry drifted. That's exactly why the aerospace industry created NADCAP, the National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program, managed by the Performance Review Institute.
NADCAP accredits the process, not the whole company, and it does so against detailed industry audit criteria with frequent, technically demanding audits. For a Des Moines buyer sourcing aerospace or defense work, this means the special-process step is a distinct sourcing decision. A machine shop can hold AS9100 and still have no NADCAP capability of its own, because it subcontracts heat treat, coatings, and NDT to accredited specialists. Understanding which processes your part requires and which need accreditation is the first move.
The Central Iowa Reality and the Wider Midwest Reach
Des Moines's industrial base is built on agricultural equipment, renewable-energy components, welding and fabrication, and CNC machining. Those are real strengths, but NADCAP-accredited special processing is a specialized aerospace function that doesn't naturally cluster in an ag-equipment economy. The practical consequence is that a buyer often machines locally and reaches outward for accredited finishing. Accredited heat treat, plating, anodize, chem processing, and NDT sources are more concentrated in larger aerospace-adjacent markets like Chicago, the Twin Cities, and further into the Midwest aerospace corridor.
That split chain is normal in aerospace and not a problem if it's managed. The key is that your AS9100 machine shop or your prime supplier coordinates the routing, sends parts to its approved NADCAP sources, and passes the accreditation and process certifications back to you. The freight and added lead time of shipping parts out for accredited processing and back is the cost of doing aerospace work from a region that isn't a special-process hub. A buyer who maps the full routing up front, including each accredited step, avoids the late surprise of discovering no local source can perform a required process.
Verifying Accreditation Scope to the Process Level
NADCAP verification is more granular than checking a quality certificate. The Performance Review Institute maintains the eAuditNet database where NADCAP accreditations are listed, and you verify a supplier by confirming its accreditation there for the exact special process and commodity you need. NADCAP commodities are specific, covering categories like heat treating, chemical processing, coatings, welding, nondestructive testing, and others, and a supplier accredited for one is not accredited for all. Read the scope carefully and match it to your routing.
There's a second layer that catches buyers off guard: prime approvals. Holding NADCAP accreditation for a process is necessary but not always sufficient, because individual aerospace primes maintain their own approved-source lists and may require that the special-process supplier also hold their specific approval. So you verify accreditation in eAuditNet and then confirm the supplier carries any prime approvals your program demands. A source can be legitimately NADCAP-accredited for heat treat yet still not be approved for the particular prime your part flows to. Confirming both the accreditation scope and the prime approvals closes that gap before you commit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Some, but likely not all, and you should plan on reaching beyond the metro for a portion of your special processing. Des Moines's manufacturing base is centered on agricultural equipment, renewable-energy components, structural fabrication, and CNC machining, none of which naturally builds a deep bench of NADCAP-accredited special-process suppliers. NADCAP accreditation is an aerospace-specific function that clusters in larger aerospace-adjacent markets, so accredited heat treat, plating, anodize, chemical processing, and nondestructive testing sources are more concentrated in places like Chicago, the Twin Cities, and the broader Midwest aerospace corridor. The realistic model for a Des Moines buyer is local or regional machining combined with accredited special processing sourced from wherever the accredited capability lives. Map every special process your part requires at the start, identify which ones need NADCAP accreditation, and confirm an accredited source exists for each before you release the job. The worst outcome is discovering mid-program that a required accredited process has no source you can reach affordably.
NADCAP verification is far more granular because it accredits specific processes rather than a whole quality system. You verify NADCAP accreditation through eAuditNet, the database maintained by the Performance Review Institute, and you must match the accreditation to the exact NADCAP commodity and process your part needs. Commodities are specific, covering categories like heat treating, chemical processing, coatings, welding, and nondestructive testing, and accreditation in one does not imply accreditation in another. So unlike an AS9100 check where you confirm one system-level certificate and its scope, NADCAP requires confirming process-level accreditation for each special process in your routing. There's also a second step many buyers miss: aerospace primes maintain their own approved-source lists, so a NADCAP-accredited supplier may still need a specific prime approval for your program. Verifying NADCAP means checking eAuditNet for the exact process and then confirming any required prime approvals. It's a tighter, more technical verification than a general quality certificate review, and skipping the scope detail is a frequent and costly error.
Usually not. Most AS9100-certified machine shops, including those serving aerospace customers from the Des Moines region, do not perform NADCAP special processes in-house and instead subcontract heat treat, coatings, plating, chemical processing, and nondestructive testing to accredited specialists. That's by design, because NADCAP accreditation is demanding and process-specific, and a job shop focused on machining rarely justifies maintaining its own accredited furnaces, plating lines, and NDT operations. What a strong AS9100 shop does provide is coordination: it routes your parts to its approved NADCAP sources, manages the flow-down, and returns the accreditation evidence and process certifications to you in the final data package. The right question to ask your machine shop is which NADCAP-accredited suppliers it uses for each special process your part requires, whether those suppliers' accreditations are current in eAuditNet, and whether they carry any prime approvals your program demands. If the shop can't name its accredited sources, that's a sign the special-process side of your job isn't under control.
For each NADCAP-accredited special process applied to your part, you should receive a process certification that ties the operation to the accredited supplier and confirms it was performed to the applicable specification. That includes the supplier identity, the specific process and specification, and traceability linking the certification to your part and lot. For heat treatment, expect documentation of the cycle and applicable spec; for coatings and chemical processing, evidence the process met the controlling specification; and for nondestructive testing, the inspection results and the qualified technician's certification level. Alongside the process certs, your overall data package should carry material traceability to mill heat numbers, the first-article inspection report where applicable, and certificates of conformance that flow the whole chain together. The accreditation itself should be verifiable in eAuditNet for the relevant process. A complete package lets you trace a finished aerospace part back through every special process to the accredited source and the raw material, which is exactly the chain an auditor or a failure investigation will want to follow.
Last updated: July 2026
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