Emerald EMS DataED Manufacturing Site Earns AS9100D Certification

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Emerald Electronics Manufacturing Services (Emerald EMS) announced that its DataED facility, located in Salem, New Hampshire, is the third of its manufacturing sites to attain the AS9100-2016 Rev D certification, an essential quality control standard for serving the Aerospace & Defense market.

Two other Emerald EMS manufacturing sites—Saline Lectronics in Saline, Michigan, and Veris Manufacturing in Brea, California—also hold the AS9100D certification, providing geographic and logistical flexibility while ensuring strict adherence to the unique quality control, reliability and documentation requirements of the company’s Aerospace & Defense industry customers.

A fourth Emerald EMS manufacturing facility, Silicon Valley-based Bestronics, is expected to attain AS9100D certification by the end of 2021.

“The DataED team worked tirelessly to achieve this milestone certification, expanding our ability to meet the rigorous requirements of our customers in this increasingly complex industry sector,” said Emerald EMS CEO Vic Giglio. “This new certification is a testament to the technological expertise, manufacturing excellence and highest quality standards reflected throughout the global Emerald EMS operation.”

The AS9100D certification provides global standards for best practices in the aerospace and defense industry, requiring strict adherence to quality and reliability standards, documentation of procedures, rigorous quality measurements, and corrective actions intended to create consistency in mission-critical products.

“By achieving the goal of AS9100D certification, we have expanded our ability to serve more customers in the complex and highly regulated Aerospace and Defense industry and ensured that our existing customers benefit from international best practices in quality control throughout our operations,” said DataEd President Michael LaFleur. “Data ED has always excelled in product quality control, as evidenced by our various internal and external metrics, and in customer support. The new AS9100D requirements imbedded throughout our systems have further reduced the risk of nonconforming product escapes and enhanced our ability to respond quickly and support our customers with any product quality issues.”

The process of attaining AS9100D certification is a lengthy one, consisting of several steps, including learning about the standards, analyzing and comparing current operations to standards, planning implementation, training personnel, and documentation and auditing of quality management operations. For several years, DataED has been certified to ISO 9001: 2015, the international standard for quality management systems, said DataED Director of Quality Dennis Goodman.

AS9100D includes all the requirements of the ISO 9001 certification, plus additional requirements specified by the International Aerospace Quality Group. With a leadership team routinely focused on improving infrastructure, personnel skill levels, IT capabilities and improving quality management systems, beginning the process of attaining AS9100D certification in early 2020 was “the next logical step in that progression,” Goodman said.

The AS9100D set of requirements places additional conditions in all key areas influencing product quality. This includes up stream processes such as contract review and purchasing, direct product quality elements such as traceability and document control, and post-delivery activities.

Goodman said attaining the AS9100-2016 Rev D certification was a whole-team effort. “Everyone stepped up,” he said. “The support we received as project facilitators was amazing. During the audit closing meeting, our Lead Auditor commented several times on the employees’ knowledge, enthusiasm and genuine desire to help. He was very impressed. It was a great experience all the way around.”

DataED is one of four leading electronic manufacturing services providers that merged in 2020 to form Emerald EMS, a New Water Capital portfolio company. DataED and Bestronics, based in San Jose, California, merged in October 2019. In July 2020, the two companies joined with Saline Lectronics of Saline, Michigan, and Veris Manufacturing of Brea, California, to form Emerald EMS.