ItaliAn Agency for Ballistics

 

The Technical Specifications are those documents that, attached to a purchasing contract, define the characteristics of the object that is intended to be purchased. The importance to write good Technical Specifications is strictly related with the quality levels of the item to be acquired. If the purchaser has not wide margins and if, for example, it is not acceptable that the object will be furnished with some characteristic only lightly different from that desidered, but that during the use will show important deviations from the expected behaviour, it is very much important not only to indicate in the Technical Specifications the desired requirements but also their assessment. It could happen that the Technical Specification writers find themself in difficulty when it is necessary to define the correct requirements to be included in the documents.

When the Technical Specifications do not concern a mere acquisition but more in general a study, then, the definition of the correct requirements implies an immediate increment of the quality level of the contractual object.

It is essential to prepare Technical Specification with the maximum accuracy and completeness in order to avoid that the contractual object will not differ from the desired one; in particular, it is important to indicate all the verifications that on the item shall be carried out during the fabrication phase and during the lot acceptance phase, so as the item's quality level will be conform completely to the requirements. It is similarly important that from a practical point of view the contractual Firm executes all the fabrication controls as requested by the Technical Specifications and by the related documents. It is indeed important that the inspectors are from the buyer side: pratically the self rule, also in a Firm where a quality system is implemented, not always is enough to guarantee the requested quality levels. There are cases, mainly in NATO sphere, in which Nations help each other and each Nations guarantees, if required, the controls that the buyers should perform at one's national industry. In the other cases the buyer or does not perform the controls or makes it sending its personnel, with all the costs that come from it, at the manufacturer plant in order to support it during the item's controls execution .

 

In this branch, the activities carried out by the Agency are the followings: 

¨ drawing up of contractual technical specifications;

¨  drawing up of contractual technical specifications;

¨ review of contractual technical specifications in order to verify that all the requirements, necessary to define the contractual object, have been considered;

¨ checking that the technical specifications do not contain requirements non consistent with the reality;

¨ monitoring of the activities plan related to a contract in execution;

¨ supervision of fabrication line and acceptance tests requested by the contract;

¨ technical support to the buyer's quality employees.

 

The Italian Agency for Ballistics can intervene helpfully advising the customer in the preparation of the most possible complete Technical Specifications. The Agency personnel is expertise in this field and is updated on the safety prescriptions to be included in the documents.  

Examples:  “I have to purchase a weapon system, an ammunition or simply a component and I want to do the best to include in the contractual documents all those requirements and acceptance tests that can assure me on the result that I want to  achieve but I neither know the applicable regulations nor I have the resouces to highlight inside the current regulations the requirements to which the item has to be conformed”;

or in other cases “ I requested the furnishing of a weapon system or of an item to an Italian Industry and, as prescribed by the contract, I wish to execute controls on the activities but sending personnel in site is too much expensive, moreover I do not have inside my organization the necessary technical and organizational resources”.

 

The activities provided by the Italian Agency for Ballistics in this branch consist in:

¨ Information gathering

The Agency make at Customer facilities a point of situation on the needs and the aim of the contract and asks a copy of the document to be improved, if available; or in cae of auditing gathers the documentation relevant for the contractor Industry, the contract, the Technical Specifications and all the related documents where the procedures, to execute the controls, have been laid down.

¨ Document evaluation/preparation

In this phase an evaluation of the document provided by the customer is carried out and possible lacks are highlighted. If the Customer had not provided any document then the first draft of the Technical Specification can be prepared by the Agency itself or in case of auditing the Agency evaluates the contract timeline, meets the contractor to verify possible troublesomes on and prepares an activities plan where the laboratories activities, the fabrication line controls and the verifications, to be performed at the end of the production phase during the lot acceptance phase, are highlighted; for each activity the expected execution period and the deadlines, beyond which the contractual execution could suffer delays, are highlighted as well.

¨ Conclusion

The Agency provides to the Customer the document that will form the contractual Technical Specification. For auditing, in progress and at the end of the contractual execution, the Agency keeps the Customer aware on the  manufacture proceeding and on the verifications results. If required, the Agency can establish and manage an archive with all the information relevant for the activity.

Technical Specifications and Auditing

AGENZIA BALISTICA ITALIANA

Via Europa 16, cap. 19020  Follo (SP) - Italy

Cod. Fiscale BRSGNN64E06H501B  P.IVA: 01405330117

Tel: +39.0187599129

E-mail: bresciani@agenziabalistica.it

ww.agenziabalistica.it

- ITalian agency for Ballistics -