Berry qualification timeline — the roadmap from US melt-stock to prime-ready.
Berry compliance is earned lot-by-lot, and the qualification work that backs it runs on a multi-quarter roadmap. This page tracks the four stages that take a fastener from raw-input qualification through prime-driven qualification reviews, with honest status markers for where each stage stands today.
The four stages from raw input to prime-ready.
Status is honest — every stage is labelled planned, in-progress, or qualified, with a planning window at the top of the card so reviewers do not have to reverse-engineer where the work sits today.
- PlannedQ1 – Q2 2026
US melt-stock qualification
Lock domestic melt-and-pour sourcing for every alloy family Redoubt ships under a Berry-compliance statement — so the specialty-metals clause of 10 U.S.C. § 4862 is satisfied at the raw-input level, not retrofitted at the finished-fastener level.
- Qualify two US melt/pour sources per alloy family (CRES, alloy steel, titanium) so each lot has a documented domestic-origin chain.
- Issue per-alloy US-melt attestations as line items in the standard Berry-compliance statement.
- Stand up a quarterly raw-input review so melt-source drift is caught before it reaches a production lot.
- In progressQ2 2026 – Q1 2027
In-house cold-heading & threading capability expansion
Bring the heavy-duty cold-heading and roll-threading work that primes currently source from outside our four walls into our own US floor. Reduces single-source exposure on the production line and shortens the chain a Berry audit walks.
- Stand up two new cold-heading cells (M4–M16 range) with in-line optical dimensional verification.
- Bring roll-threading for coarse and fine aerospace threads (ASME B1.1, B1.13M) in-house — eliminating the third-party thread step from the documented chain.
- Map every new cell to its MIL-SPEC and NASM tolerance band before the first production lot ships, so part-number suffixes point to the same cell every time.
- In progressQ3 2026 – Q4 2027
MIL-STD / MIL-PRF testing milestones
Run the destructive and environmental tests a Berry end-product audit expects to see referenced — salt-spray, torque-tension, lot traceability, and the specialty-metals confirmations DFARS 252.225-7012 looks for. Each milestone ties to a C of C paragraph.
- Salt-spray (ASTM B117 / MIL-STD-810 Method 509) — establish per-finish baseline curves so finishes used in field-grade Berry end-products carry a documented corrosion window.
- Torque-tension / clamp-load verification — publish lot-level clamp-load curves for the high-strength alloy families shipped into Berry end-products.
- Lot-traceability drill — twice-yearly, trace a randomly-selected lot from finished fastener back to the melt-source attestation on file, end-to-end.
- Planned2027 onward
Prime-driven qualification reviews
As primes move Berry-covered programs onto our line, run the buyer-specific qualification reviews each prime requires — First Article testing per AS9102, source-control drawings, and the qualification audits DoD contracting officers reference when a prime adds a new domestic source.
- Per-prime First Article (AS9102) on first-article lots, retained for the program lifecycle — primes cite this when they onboard a new domestic source.
- Source-control drawing flow so a prime-issued SCD supersedes a catalog part number cleanly, with the Berry-compliance statement preserved as a per-lot exhibit.
- Qualification audit support — DCMA-friendly documentation packs ready for the contracting-officer review window primes book for new domestic sources.
Qualification status, written into the part number.
The status of each alloy family on this timeline is reflected in the part-number suffix and the spec line printed on every shipped Certificate of Conformance. An alloy family that is qualified on the timeline ships with a Berry-eligible suffix and a C of C paragraph that names the upstream gate satisfied — Berry (10 U.S.C. § 4862) where the end-product triggers, and DFARS 252.225-7012 where the specialty-metals clause is in play.
An alloy family still in progress or planned carries a working suffix and a C of C paragraph that names the upstream gate that is pending — so engineering, QA, and the contracting officer can tell at a glance whether a given lot is Berry-eligible today, or whether the work that closes the gap is on the roadmap below.