FOD Awareness and Prevention at CIA&D.

FOD awareness and prevention is an important part of the production process at CIA&D. Our technicians regularly check for, and seek to eliminate, FOD in their work areas every single day. However, on every working Friday morning we do a “deep clean” throughout all of the manufacturing areas. This housekeeping exercise reinforces the good cleaning practices and organization of parts, tools and supplies. This is all in addition to regular employee training and scheduled walk-throughs to inspect for potential issues.

Our people recognize the importance and dangers of FOD to our harness and interconnect products, and the potential impact on our customers and the end-users. At CIA&D, we take great precautions to prevent delays in assembly and potential product failure.

There are two primary definitions of FOD:

Foreign Object Debris (FOD) is a substance, debris or article alien to a vehicle or system which would potentially cause damage.

Foreign Object Damage (also abbreviated FOD) is any damage attributed to a foreign object (i.e. any object that is not part of the vehicle) that can be expressed in physical or economic terms and may or may not degrade the product’s required safety or performance characteristics.

FOD is an abbreviation often used in aviation to describe both the damage done to aircraft by foreign objects, and the foreign objects themselves. In the case of manufacturing, we focus on eliminating foreign objects introduced during the manufacturing process. This is a focus throughout our internal processes – from inventorying parts to final shipment.

Our technicians regularly inspect product, product containers, and their work areas for anything that may be considered FOD. This includes addressing

  • an unorganized workplace
  • unaccounted tools
  • Scattered tools or components on a work surface
  • Metal chips, wire clippings not cleaned up in the work place
  • Food at the work space
  • Protective covers not installed or improperly installed
  • Any other item that is not a part of the production process

The Cost of FOD in the Aerospace Industry

It is estimated that internationally, FOD costs the aviation industry US$13 billion per year in direct and indirect costs.

The indirect costs are as much as ten times the indirect cost value, representing delays, aircraft changes, incurred fuel costs, unscheduled maintenance, and the like for a total of $13 billion per year and causes expensive, significant damage to aircraft and parts and death and injury to workers, pilots and passengers. It is estimated that FOD costs major airlines in the United States $26 per flight in aircraft repairs, plus $312 in such additional indirect costs as flight delays, plane changes and fuel inefficiencies. (FODprevention.com, 5/2019)

The largest 300 (US) airports collectively service slightly fewer than 55 million movements per year, and see up to 70,000 FOD incidents. Depending on traffic and the specifics of their operating environment, this FOD causes airlines to incur (collectively) direct costs as high as US$20 million per airport per year. FOD costs airlines US$263K per 10,000 movements in direct maintenance costs. Overall spend for the top 300 airports is US$1.1Bn. (FODNews.com, 3/2008 Insight SRI Ltd)