Military Fasteners

Threaded fasteners--ranging from nuts and bolts to threaded engine drive shafts--are used extensively in the military. Deficiencies in the current specifications for these items have contributed to fatal accidents and other incidents that affected the performance of military hardware. In addition, nonconforming fasteners have spread throughout the defense inventory system due to a lack of quality control during manufacturing and inadequate inspection methods. The Air Force acts as the Defense Department's "agent" for threaded fasteners. Proposals from the Air Force to change its specifications for threaded fasteners used in such critical applications have been met with strong opposition from the fastener and aerospace industries, which claim that the changes are unnecessary and will not improve the quality of the product. After considering the views of both industry and government representatives, GAO concludes that the Air Force's decision to change the specifications is reasonable; however, GAO was unable to estimate reliably the cost of implementing the proposed changes.

GAO found the Air Force: (1) decided to change specifications for class 3 threaded fasteners because of accidents caused by failures of nonconforming threaded parts which had passed existing inspection requirements and the high number of nonconforming products accepted into inventory; and (2) estimated the cost of implementing the changes to be $11 million for the government and about $14 million for industry.