Space X Complacency

I deal with this all the time. I ask my contractors, "How do you know this is CRES 301?" or "Why do you believe this will withstand 50g for 5ms?" or "How do you know this isn't counterfeit?" Usually I get an answer along the lines of, "Well, they gave me a Certificate of Conformance."

Certificates of Conformance and such like documentation are useless to me as demonstrations of adherence to spec. They are only useful for my lawyers when they take your lawyer to court when your product does not live up to that certificate. (Assuming the failure did not blow up and cost me my life or my company and I still have some money left to sue you with.) You need to show me how you double-check at least a sample of these CofCs, or how your supplier earned and maintains your trust.

I imagine the maker of that strut, if asked, would have this response: "If it is true that our strut was at fault, we will be happy to abide by the terms of the warranty and provide a replacement strut at no additional cost."

"it should meet spec"

Test method must be defined else certifications makes no sense at all. Engineers should be able to repeat test as per procedure. Does the procedure meet the required standard is another question is of course the responsibility of the purchaser.

Shyam