Feature story
Ariane 5 Quality Audit Report
July 20, 2010
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Last April, following the delays encountered in the preparation of the Ariane 5 Flight 194, Arianespace decided, in close connection with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the French Space Agency (CNES), to implement a Quality Audit to understand the reasons of the problems experienced and to propose corrective measures and actions.
The Final Report of this Quality Audit was made available last week.
The Quality Audit has assessed an Ariane Industry with a heritage of 50 Ariane 5 flights. Even if it concluded that full industrialisation of the Ariane 5 production capabilities remains to be completed, the Quality Audit considers that based on the dedicated audits performed at selected Ariane production suppliers, including contacts with workers in their workshops, state of the art technology and processes are applied on a sound basis. Quality principles and their practical application were found to be at a satisfactory level and adequately respected.
Nevertheless, the Audit stated that the current processes would be enhanced by implementing:
- Systematic exploitation of warning signs encountered in the launcher production and exploitation and quick implementation of preventive action,
- Regular audits of critical technology production processes,
- Evaluation of degraded modes and demonstration of system acceptable margins,
- Additional efficiency of decision making process,
- Systematic technical transparency and management synergy within the Ariane 5 system.
In this context, the Quality Audit recommended to give priority and pay specific attention to propulsion technologies. It underlines that in this specific field, development and maintenance of accurate skills are difficult and essential. They must be kept at a premier level. As a consequence, there is a need to strengthen the discipline and mobilize European competencies:
- To enhance the level of technical oversight of the propulsion activities,
- To monitor quality trends and indicators to allow for improved reactivity for propulsion issues,
- By collecting and providing access to the available expertise within the launcher community through an electronic network,
- By using this additional expertise to help analyse and solve complex propulsion issues.
These recommendations will stimulate a global action throughout the Ariane Industry by introducing the same sensitivity, reactivity and result oriented action early in the production line as successfully implemented during treatment of campaign anomalies.
These recommendations will be implemented without delay and the Quality Audit will be reconvened by the end of 2010 in order to assess the progress of the resulting action plan.
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