🔥 NADCAP
NADCAP-Accredited Welding & Fabrication Special Processes
Welding sits at the heart of why NADCAP exists: it is the textbook special process whose quality you cannot fully confirm by looking at the finished part, so the aerospace industry built a single, brutal, consensus audit to police it. A NADCAP welding accreditation is the most process-specific assurance a buyer can hold for a weld, and it answers a question that no management-system certificate can.
NADCAPAS9100ISO 9001
The AC7110 Audit and What It Inspects
NADCAP welding is accredited under the AC7110 family of audit criteria, managed by the Performance Review Institute on behalf of the member primes. The base document AC7110 sets general requirements, AC7110/4 covers fusion welding, AC7110/5 covers resistance welding, AC7110/12 addresses electron-beam and laser-beam welding, and AC7110/3 deals with weld procedure and operator qualification, with related slash sheets for processes like brazing under separate accreditations. The audit is not a desk review; an industry-trained auditor spends days on the floor watching actual welds, reviewing procedure and operator qualification records, checking shielding-gas certs and purge practices, verifying equipment calibration and amperage accuracy, and pulling the traceability on filler metals down to lot and certification.
Unlike a quality-system audit that confirms a process exists, the AC7110 checklist verifies the welding is technically correct against the criteria: that the WPS is properly qualified and followed, that welders hold current performance qualifications for the exact joint and material, that heat input and parameters stay within range, and that discrepancies are dispositioned correctly. The auditor witnesses live welds and reviews the objective evidence behind closed ones.
Findings are written against specific checklist line items, and the supplier must close every nonconformity with root cause and corrective action before the accreditation is granted. There is no partial pass.
How NADCAP Differs From Every Management-System Certificate
ISO 9001 and AS9100 certify that a company runs a quality management system; they audit the organization. NADCAP audits the process. That is the whole distinction, and it explains why primes require both: AS9100 governs the shop, NADCAP qualifies the weld. A shop can hold an immaculate AS9100 certificate and still produce poor welds if its actual fusion technique is unsound, which is exactly the gap NADCAP closes by sending a welding specialist to scrutinize the arc, the parameters, and the coupons.
The audit cadence reflects the higher stakes. Where AS9100 runs on a three-year cycle with annual surveillance, NADCAP accreditations are short, with initial accreditation often valid for one year and the interval extending only as a supplier earns merit through clean audits, typically reaching 18 to 24 months. This means NADCAP lapses far more often than AS9100, and a supplier that was accredited a year ago may not be today. The accreditation is also tightly scoped: a shop accredited for GTAW fusion welding of titanium is not accredited for electron-beam welding or for resistance welding unless those scopes were separately audited and granted.
Verifying Scope and Status in eAuditNet
NADCAP maintains a central, authoritative system called eAuditNet, run by PRI, where every accreditation is recorded with the supplier, the specific commodity and slash-sheet scope, the accreditation status, and the expiration date. This is the single most useful verification tool in special-process sourcing, and unlike ITAR it is genuinely checkable. Confirm the supplier appears as accredited, that the welding commodity and the specific AC7110 slash sheet match your process, and that the accreditation has not expired.
The scope detail is where buyers get burned. NADCAP welding scopes are granular: they specify the welding methods, sometimes the material families, and the qualification basis. A supplier accredited only for resistance welding under AC7110/5 cannot legitimately present that accreditation as covering your GTAW structural weld under AC7110/4. Also note any conditions or the supplier's merit status, since a shop on probation or with a recently shortened audit interval after findings may carry elevated risk. Because the cycle is short, re-verify in eAuditNet near the time of each order rather than relying on a screenshot from months ago; an expired NADCAP scope means your weld was not actually performed under accreditation.
Frequently Asked Questions
No, they serve different and complementary purposes, and most aerospace primes require both. NADCAP accredits a specific special process, in this case welding, by sending a trained welding auditor to verify that the actual technique, procedures, operator qualifications, parameters, and traceability meet the AC7110 audit criteria on the shop floor. AS9100 and ISO 9001 certify that the company operates a quality management system, auditing the organization rather than the weld itself. A shop could hold a clean AS9100 certificate and still produce unsound welds if its fusion practice is poor, which is precisely the gap NADCAP exists to close. Conversely, NADCAP focuses narrowly on the process and assumes a functioning quality system surrounds it. That is why flow-down from companies like Boeing, GE Aerospace, and Lockheed Martin typically demands AS9100 at the company level and NADCAP at the process level for flight welds. Treat them as layers: the management system plus the process accreditation together, not one in place of the other.
Use eAuditNet, the authoritative system operated by the Performance Review Institute, which lists every NADCAP accreditation with the supplier, the commodity and slash-sheet scope, the status, and the expiration date. Confirm three things. First, that the accreditation is currently active and not expired; NADCAP cycles are short, often one year initially and extending toward 18 to 24 months only as the supplier earns merit, so accreditations lapse far more often than ISO certificates. Second, that the welding commodity and the specific AC7110 slash sheet match your exact process, since scopes are granular: AC7110/4 covers fusion welding, AC7110/5 resistance welding, and AC7110/12 electron-beam and laser welding, and accreditation for one does not cover the others. Third, check any conditions or merit status, because a supplier recently placed on a shortened interval after findings carries elevated risk. Because the cycle is short, re-verify near the time of each purchase order rather than trusting an old screenshot, since a lapsed scope means your weld was not performed under accreditation.
It adds significant cost, both to the supplier and to your parts, but it buys process assurance available no other way. For the shop, maintaining NADCAP welding accreditation runs tens of thousands of dollars annually in PRI fees, multi-day on-site audits, dedicated welding engineering, continuous operator requalification, and coupon testing, plus the cost of closing every audit finding with documented root cause and corrective action. That overhead flows into pricing, so NADCAP-welded parts commonly carry premiums well above commercial fabrication, often layered on top of the AS9100 premium. Lead times stretch because qualified operators, controlled materials, and any required NDT must be scheduled, and because the documentation package is substantial. The short accreditation cycle also means suppliers occasionally pause work around audit windows. For flight-critical welds the premium is non-negotiable, since the alternative is an unverifiable special process on safety-critical hardware. For non-critical fabrication, requiring NADCAP would add cost without adding value, so reserve it for parts where weld integrity is genuinely critical.
NADCAP welding accreditation is organized under the AC7110 family of audit criteria managed by PRI. The base AC7110 document sets general requirements that apply across welding. AC7110/4 covers fusion welding, which includes the common arc processes such as gas tungsten arc welding and gas metal arc welding. AC7110/5 covers resistance welding, including spot and seam welding. AC7110/12 covers high-energy-beam welding, namely electron-beam and laser-beam welding. AC7110/3 addresses welding procedure and operator qualification that underpins the others. Related special processes such as brazing are handled under their own accreditation rather than AC7110. The practical point for a buyer is that these scopes are independent: a supplier accredited for fusion welding is not automatically accredited for resistance or electron-beam welding, and each must be separately audited and granted. When you specify a process, confirm the matching slash sheet appears in the supplier's eAuditNet scope, including any material or method limitations recorded there, before assuming your specific weld is covered.
Last updated: July 2026
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