Quality Assurance: The Fastener Quality Act's Small-Lot Exemption
Released: 2001-06-08T00:00:00

Letter

Background

Billions of fasteners are used in safety-critical applications such as buildings, nuclear power plants, bridges, motor vehicles, airplanes, and other products or equipment each year. For example, an automobile may have as many as 3,000 fasteners.

In 1988, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations issued a report on counterfeit and substandard fasteners that, along with hearings held by the House Science Committee, led to the enactment of FQA on November 16, 1990. The subcommittee reported that failures of substandard and often counterfeit fasteners may have been responsible for deaths and injuries, reduced defense readiness, and that they potentially threatened the safety of every American. According to the subcommittee report, the Defense Industrial Supply Center, which supplies fasteners to the armed services, found that its inventory contained over 30 million counterfeit fasteners and that Army depots contained another 2.6 million. Similarly, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) reported that it found substandard fasteners in space shuttle equipment, and six of its fastener vendors were found to have inadequate quality-control systems. The Air Force likewise discovered substandard flight safety-critical aerospace fasteners in its inventory.

FQA covers certain threaded, metallic, heat-treated fasteners of one- quarter inch diameter or greater for use in safety-critical applications. As originally enacted in 1990, FQA required manufacturers and importers to submit all lots of fasteners with significant safety applications to accredited laboratories for testing; established a laboratory accreditation program at the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST); required original test certificates to accompany the fasteners throughout the sale process; established requirements for manufacturers’ insignias to ensure traceability of fasteners to manufacturers and distributors; and provided for civil and criminal penalties for violations of the act.

Since its passage, FQA has been amended several times. Concerns over the regulatory burden of FQA on aviation manufacturers led Congress, in August 1998, to amend the act to exempt certain fasteners approved by the Federal Aviation Administration for use in aircraft. The 1998 amendments also delayed implementation of NIST’s regulations for accrediting testing laboratories.

FQA was amended again on June 8, 1999,to make it less burdensome: Fasteners that are part of an assembly or that are ordered for use as a spare, substitute, service, or replacement part in a package containing 75 or fewer parts at the time of sale or are contained in an assembly kit (i.e., the small-lot exemption) were exempted from coverage.

Fasteners manufactured in a facility using quality-assurance systems were exempted from coverage.

The amendment required accredited laboratory testing only of fasteners manufactured to consensus standards requiring testing, and postponed that requirement until June 2001.

Companies were allowed to transmit and store electronically all records on fastener quality provided that reasonable means of authentication of the source of the document existed.

The Commerce Department was required to establish and maintain a hotline for reporting alleged violations of the law. All credible allegations would then be forwarded to the Attorney General.

The amendment also made it unlawful to knowingly misrepresent or falsify the fastener’s record of conformance or identification, characteristics, properties, mechanical or performance marks, chemistry, or strength.

Although FQA does not mention Customs, Customs is authorized by 15 U.S.C. § 1125(b) to identify and detain imported goods marked or labeled with a false description or representation. Under this authority, Customs has conducted spot checks of imported fasteners since 1987 to determine if fasteners’ descriptions or representations are accurate. It has seven laboratories located around the country that provide scientific support to all Customs officers, other government agencies, and foreign governments as part of international assistance programs. Customs laboratories tested samples from randomly selected shipments of graded boltsimported from January through April 1998 in various sized lots and again in March and April 2001. These included one or more of the following tests: carbon, sulfur, phosphorous, alloying elements (chemical tests); or tensile strength and hardness (mechanical tests).

Customs’ Limited Tests of Imported Fasteners Found No Evidence of Substandard Fasteners Imported After December 1999

Customs’ Chicago laboratory tested 66 randomly selected shipments of graded bolts (12 in small lots) imported during March and April 2001 and found that none were substandard. As discussed below, this is a decrease from results of tests that Customs did before December 1999.

Customs’ laboratories also tested a random sample of 77 shipments of graded bolts imported in various sized lots from January 12 to April 12, 1998, and found three (not in small lots) to be substandard. The bolts failed either the tensile or hardness test and were imported through Chicago from Korea or Taiwan. On the basis of these sample results, the Customs study estimated that 5 percent of the 3,097 shipments of the same type of bolts that entered U.S. ports during the 3-month test period were substandard.

Customs’ 2001 Test of Defense Fasteners Found None Were Defective

In addition to testing graded fasteners imported in March and April 2001, Customs’ Chicago laboratory tested, at our request, samples of graded bolts from 15 small lotsthat DSCP had purchased between January 1998 and February 2001, and found that none were defective. Three lots were from contracts for purchases after December 1999and the remainder were before this time. According to a DSCP official, there is no way to determine if the contractors used foreign or domestic materials. Because of the small number of lots tested, the results, by themselves, cannot be used to make any conclusions about industry changes in manufacturing small lots. These results are, however, the best data available on fasteners that DSCP purchased in small lots.

Responses to Federal Register Notice Uncovered No Evidence of Changes in Industry Practices

None of the 14 responses to our Federal Register notice stated that the fastener industry had changed any practices as a result of the small-lot exemption, as shown in the examples below.

The Industrial Fasteners Institute and the National Fastener Distributors Association said they believe that there will be no evidence of significant changes in industry practice because most fasteners sold under the small- lot exemption are produced under quality-assurance systems and are therefore not subject to the act. They further stated that since fastener manufacturers can comply with the test requirements in the amended act in a cost-efficient manner, it is doubtful that industry members would attempt to avoid these costs by marketing fasteners in small-lot packages.

The Canadian Fasteners Institute said that in the last decade, the fastener industry has made great advances and investments in product quality control and assurance. It said that the concern with the small-lot exemption stems from its potential for creating a public safety hazard and that the opportunity for the emergence of substandard products in commerce is too great a risk with the small-lot exemption in place. It suggested that, in lieu of any exemptions, FQA be amended to say that the manufacturer, distributor, or importer that sells fasteners as having certain mechanical and physical properties must be capable of substantiating those properties. That is, promises a seller makes to a buyer must be verifiable with objective evidence.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers (AIAM) said that their members produce virtually all the passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States and use 300 billion fasteners annually. They reported that Congress exempted most automotive fasteners from FQA because strong incentives exist to enhance fastener quality, given the potential impact of faulty fasteners on customer satisfaction, product liability, and regulatory liability. They said that manufacturers have developed various measures, as follows, to assure the quality of the fasteners that they purchase: Proprietary standards—Vehicle manufacturers have developed their own fastener standards to assure that their fasteners are appropriate for specific applications.

Quality-assurance systems—Vehicle manufacturers generally require that their fastener suppliers be certified under fastener quality-assurance systems to minimize the occurrence of nonconforming fasteners.

Closed-loop acquisition—Vehicle manufacturers generally purchase their fasteners from approved suppliers to assure quality and accountability, and rarely purchase generic fasteners on the open market.

The Alliance and AIAM said that they surveyed their members to obtain responses to the questions contained in our Federal Register notice. They said that the responses they received represented over 90 percent of U.S. light vehicle sales in calendar year 1999. None of the respondents reported any significant changes in procurement and packaging practices that involved a reduction in units per package to below 75 units, or an increase in the use of assembly kits as a means of complying with the FQA requirements through the small-lot exemption.

The Alliance and AIAM said that on the basis of these survey results, virtually all of the fasteners produced to assemble or service members’ products are either manufactured to internal company proprietary standards or are produced under a qualifying fastener quality-assurance system, or both. As a result, they said much less than 1 percent of fasteners purchased are exempt from FQA solely through the small-lot exemption.

These groups reported that the small-lot exemption still serves a very important purpose: to allow the continued availability, at an affordable price, of many spare-part fasteners required to service their members’ products in a safe manner. The majority of these small package/assembly kit fasteners are used to service older models that typically have very low annual sales of spare parts. Without this vital exemption, they report, the costs of such parts would become prohibitive, forcing their members to remove many of these products from the market. In such a case, they believe, the customer desiring to service his or her car would typically be forced to substitute the correct-specification fastener with a generic hardware store look-alike fastener, one that in all likelihood was manufactured to different specifications and uncertain quality standards.

The Equipment Manufacturers Institute, an association of companies that manufacture agricultural, construction, forestry, materials-handling, and utility equipment, reported that its members want the small-lot exemption to remain in law. They are concerned that altering or removing it could result in burdensome paperwork and wasteful and unnecessary quality tests for fasteners that are commonly used for the off-road equipment industry. They said this would result in large nonvalue-added costs that would ultimately be borne by the consumer and reduce America’s global competitiveness and cost jobs. Additionally, they stated, fastener quality has not been a problem for its industry, and remains that way today.

Other comments received included the following: The director of quality assurance at Huck Fasteners, Inc., said that he had surveyed his eight manufacturing facilities and found no changes in how fasteners are packaged as a result of FQA.

A fastener manufacturer’s representative said that he had not seen any changes in industry practices as a result of the small-lot exemption, and that all the manufacturers and distributors he knows are in compliance.

The president of Edward W. Daniel Co., a manufacturer of industrial lifting hardware and a member of the National Fastener Distributors Association, said that most manufacturers/importers of fasteners have developed quality programs and maintain the appropriate records for tracing the manufacturing materials used.

Federal Agencies Reported No Evidence of Changes in Industry Practices

None of the officials that we spoke with in DSCP or NASA reported any evidence of changes in fastener industry practices resulting from, or apparently resulting from, the small-lot exemption. DSCP officials reported that their agency requires prospective suppliers of fasteners to have a quality-assurance system. Likewise, officials from the Departments of Commerce and Justice, agencies that have specific responsibilities under FQA, stated that they did not have any evidence of changes in fastener industry practices.

DSCP did not report any changes in industry practices. It operates a program that requires both manufacturers and distributors who want to sell to it to be prequalified. According to the agency Web site, applicants for the program must demonstrate their controls and established criteria to provide maximum assurance that the products procured conform to specifications. In addition, DSCP tests certain product lines, such as aerospace products, and randomly selects products for testing on a regular basis from its inventory. DSCP officials said that they manage approximately 1.2 million items, of which about 300,000 are fastener products and about 10 percent are covered under FQA.

None of NASA’s nine centersreported any changes in industry practices as a result of the small-lot exemption.

NIST officials responsible for FQA said that, as of March 31, 2001, they have not received any reports that the fastener industry has changed any practices as a result of the small-lot exemption. Similarly, officials from the Bureau of Export Administration reported that, as of March 30, 2001, their fraud hotline, which became operational on June 27, 2000, had not received any allegations that relate to the small-lot exemption.

Officials at the Department of Justice said that the 1999 amendments to FQA were so new that neither its criminal nor civil divisions had any activity involving fasteners. Additionally, they said, they were not aware of any prosecutions or convictions involving fasteners sold in packages of 75 or fewer or in assembly kits since December 1999.

Conclusion

We found no evidence that the fastener industry has changed any practices resulting from, or apparently resulting from, the small-lot exemption.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

We provided a draft of this report to the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Treasury, and the Secretary of Defense for review and comment.

In a June 4, 2001, letter, the Secretary of Commerce stated that the relevant bureaus of the Department of Commerce had reviewed the report and had no substantive comments (see app. III). Other Commerce staff provided technical comments on the draft report, which we incorporated as appropriate. In a May 23, 2001, memorandum, the Director, Office of Planning, U.S. Customs Service stated that he had no substantive comments to make (see app. IV). Other U.S. Customs staff provided technical comments on the draft report, which we also incorporated as appropriate. The Department of Defense provided comments, concurring in the report’s findings and providing technical comments on the draft report, which we incorporated as appropriate.

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Commerce; the Secretary of the Treasury; the Secretary of Defense; and the Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Copies will also be available at our Web site at www.gao.gov.

Should you have any questions on matters contained in this report, please contact me at (202) 512-6240 or Alan Stapleton, Assistant Director, at (202) 512-3418. We can also be reached by e-mail at koontzl@gao.gov or stapletona@gao.gov, respectively. Other key contributors to this report included David Plocher and Theresa Roberson.

Appendix I: Objective, Scope, and Methodology

As stated in FQA, our objective was to determine if there had been any changes in fastener industry practice “resulting from or apparently resulting from” the small-lot exemption in FQA. To achieve this objective, we compared the results of Customs’ mechanical and chemical tests of bolts imported during March and April 2001 with the results of similar testing performed by Customs for bolts imported from January through April 1998.

These tests had several limitations. According to Customs officials, the document that an importer provides for each shipment of fasteners does not have to identify that the shipment contains packages of 75 or fewer fasteners (i.e., small lots) or that the fasteners are of a particular grade. Therefore, for both the 1998 and 2001 tests, Customs could not randomly select just those shipments containing small lots of grade 5 and grade 8 fasteners. Rather, the selection also included ungraded fasteners that were not sent to the laboratory for testing because, without the grade marking, Customs could not identify the test standards. For the 2001 test, Customs recorded when the package selected contained 75 or fewer graded bolts so we could compare their test results with those for packages containing more than 75 bolts. We observed Customs’ inspection of imported fasteners at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport; we also visited Customs’ Chicago laboratory and observed its testing of some of the selected fasteners.

Another limitation was that Customs designed both its 1998 and 2001 studies to only randomly select shipments valued at $2,500 or more so that resources were not spent on small, inconsequential shipments. However, problems during the 1998 study caused over 28 percent of the shipments selected to be valued at less than $2,500. These included 80 shipments valued at less than $500 and at least one valued at $1. Based on the price of grade 5 and grade 8 bolts, it is likely that some of the 80 shipments valued at less than $500 included in the 1998 test were in small lots.

To address our objective, we also compared the results of Customs’ mechanical and chemical tests of fasteners DSCP purchased in small lots from January 1998 to December 1999 with the results of Customs’ mechanical and chemical tests of fasteners DSCP purchased from January 2000 to January 2001. We selected DSCP because of its problems in the 1980s with counterfeit fasteners. We asked DSCP to send the samples directly to Customs for testing.

There were limitations in DSCP’s selection of the samples. DSCP officials initially identified 56 different contracts for small-lot purchases for potential testing, yet only 15 lots were ultimately tested. DSCP officials decided that 15 of the 56 contracts were ineligible for testing because the lot size was fewer than 25 bolts; thus, taking several bolts for testing could result in DSCP’s not being able to fill a customer’s order. Officials further said that 25 small-lot purchases were not tested because no inventory remained at the time the depots were asked to ship the bolts to Customs’ laboratory. Finally, one sample sent to Customs for testing was not traceable to a contract number, and so it was eliminated from the test results.

To give the public an opportunity to report any changes in industry practices, we published a notice in the Federal Register on August 9, 2000 (F.R. 48714), and on our Web site, asking for comments no later than November 30, 2000. We also notified nearly 60 journals, newsletters, associations, and manufacturers of our Federal Register notice. As a result, several journals (e.g., Fastener Industry News and Wire Journal International) wrote articles about our study that often referred readers who wanted more information to our Federal Register notice or Web site. We also asked associations representing the fastener industry and the automobile industry to notify their memberships about our Federal Register notice and Web site notice.

We asked officials at agencies that had experienced problems with fasteners in the past (DSCP and NASA) and NIST (with responsibilities under FQA) if they were aware of any changes in industry practices resulting from, or apparently resulting from, the FQA small-lot exemption.

In addition, we asked officials at Commerce’s Bureau of Export Administration whether they had received any FQA allegations involving small lots of fasteners and officials in the Department of Justice about any allegations, investigations, prosecutions, or convictions involving fasteners sold in small lots or in assembly kits.

We also attempted to compare the results of NASA’s tests of grade 8 fasteners purchased by its Langley Research Center before and after December 1999. However, there were too few mechanical and chemical tests completed to make this comparison possible.

We conducted our review from January 2000 to May 2001, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. We performed our work in Washington D.C., and Chicago, Illinois.

Appendix II: Federal Register Notice

Appendix III: Comments From the Department of Commerce

Appendix IV: Comments From the U.S. Customs Service