Bomb Maker Meets Quality Controls
The Marquardt Co., a Van Nuys bomb producer that was threatened with losing federal military business, is back in the Pentagon’s good graces after improving its quality control system.
On Oct. 6 the federal government removed Marquardt from a list of defense contractors with problems in its quality controls, according to documents obtained by The Times under the Freedom of Information Act.
Defense Contract Administration Services, a branch of the U.S. Department of Defense, put Marquardt on the list on Dec. 14, 1988, because of widespread problems at the firm in quality inspections and what it termed an ineffective system for establishing responsibility for quality control problems.
Most of the problems related to paper work but in some cases Marquardt products that had not yet been shipped to the government did not meet specifications, said Gay Maund, regional public affairs officer for DCAS in El Segundo.
A DCAS official sent another letter to the company, warning that the federal government would temporarily stop buying Marquardt products if “prompt and effective measures are not taken to resolve this system failure.” That letter was dated Jan. 30, 1989, about 1 1/2 months after Marquardt was informed that it had been placed on the list of problem companies.
Marquardt makes a variety of military products and manufactures thrusters that control the movement of satellites and the space shuttle. The company also makes parts of cluster bombs, large metal casings that break open and scatter as many as 250 mini-bombs.
Marquardt is owned by Ferranti International, an electronics company based in the United Kingdom. Marquardt’s sales to the U.S. government have fallen from about $140 million annually before the firm was placed on the list of government contractors with quality problems, to about $110 million annually now, Maund said.
Marquardt agreed with the complaints in the government’s original letter and undertook a massive retraining program to correct them, said Joe Pospichal, executive assistant to the company president.
“There has never been a question that the products we sent out did not meet specifications,” Pospichal said. “It was just that the system itself did not fully comply with what the government wanted.”
