The titanium and aluminum investment casting specialist TITAL GmbH has been successfully certified by Airbus according to GRAMS (General Requirements for Aerostructure & Material Suppliers). TITAL has met all the requirements on the first try to become a supplier for the new Airbus passenger plane the A350XWB. As Berthold Busch, head of quality management at TITAL, says, the initial certification was necessary in order to be on the short list of suppliers. "If we are going to produce castings for the A350 in the future, further audits in the production and business processes will follow. However, any subsequent audits will be relatively easy compared to the success that has now been achieved." According to the auditors, the certification was completed with above-average results for an initial audit. "This is very uncommon", according to Busch who was very pleased.

According to GRAMS the audit and certification is a new procedure developed from an Airbus standard that shall be applied worldwide with the cooperation of aerospace manufacturers and their suppliers. GRAMS manages the business process requirements between Airbus and their suppliers from contract review, order acceptance, component processing and production, final inspection and delivery. The initial audit lasted three days and was carried out by several accredited Airbus auditors.

Only a few weeks ago TITAL was recertified according to the EN/AS9100 standard developed by the IAQG (International Aerospace Quality Group). With this recertification TITAL is one of only two investment casting specialists worldwide since 2001 which have been certified and audited according to the strict rules of NADCAP (National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program) as well as of the IAQG.

NADCAP certifications concentrate exclusively on the accreditation of special processes in production and quality control. At TITAL five of these processes exist. A special process is a work step where the technological or physical properties of a material are changed which is not directly recognizable but can only be determined by means of special measurements and analyses. For example a typical special process would be the heat treatment of investment castings. The recertification is valid until September 2012 and is monitored on an annual basis by an auditor.