What a flow-down is
When the Ministry of Defence places a contract, it attaches conditions. The prime contractor cannot meet many of them alone, because part of the work is done by its suppliers. So it passes the relevant obligations down through its own purchase order terms and quality requirements. That is a flow-down.
You may never see the MOD contract. What you see is a purchase order that refers to the prime's supplier quality requirements, and a list of codes. They are easy to skim past. They are also part of what you agreed to when you accepted the order.
Flow-down is selective. It varies by prime, by programme and by part, so treat what follows as a guide to what is common, not a list of what applies to you.
What commonly arrives
A quality system. Usually AS9100 or ISO 9001 certification, from a certification body accredited by UKAS. MOD contracts often cite NATO's AQAP 2110, and the prime may pass on the parts that touch you.
A certificate of conformity with each delivery. DEFCON 627 is the MOD condition behind this.
Care of issued property. If the customer sends you their material, tooling or parts, DEFCON 611 is the usual reference. You are expected to know what you hold, keep it apart from your own, and account for it.
Concessions. Def Stan 05-061 Part 1 covers these. In practice, if something is outside drawing you ask through your customer before it is used, and keep the agreement.
Counterfeit avoidance. Def Stan 05-135. Buy from sources you can stand behind, keep traceability, and have a way to quarantine and report suspect material.
Cyber security. DEFCON 658 and Def Stan 05-138 place cyber requirements on the defence supply chain according to a cyber risk profile. Cyber Essentials is expected at every level, and Cyber Essentials Plus at the higher ones. Primes increasingly ask for evidence, often through the JOSCAR supplier assurance portal.
Access and records. The right for your customer, and sometimes the MOD's Government Quality Assurance Representative, to visit and review records, and an expectation that records are kept for a period set by the contract.
Your own suppliers. Whatever applies to you usually has to be passed on to your subcontractors where it is relevant, such as the plater or the heat treater.
Where subcontractors get caught
- accepting an order without reading the quality clauses attached to it
- mixing free-issue material with stock, then being unable to account for it
- using a special process supplier the customer has not approved
- agreeing a concession by phone and having nothing to show for it later
- being asked for a record from three years ago and finding it was kept on someone's laptop
None of these is about machining skill. All of them are about records.
How to keep track
- Read the order properly, once. For each customer, list the conditions and standards they flow down. It is tedious the first time and quick after that.
- Ask when it is unclear. A prime's supplier quality team would much rather answer a question than raise a non-conformance.
- Record things when they happen. Free-issue material booked in as the customer's. The concession reference on the non-conformance report. The approved supplier, and their cert, against the operation.
- Know what your suppliers hold, and when their approvals expire.
- Decide how long you keep records, by contract, and make sure they would survive a change of staff or of computer.
The opportunity in it
Flow-downs feel like a burden, and they are work. They are also why defence work is hard to win and good to keep. A subcontractor who can answer a prime's questionnaire the same day, and produce a three-year-old record in minutes, is a supplier the prime does not want to replace.