I have received, tested and used parts made by them for assemblies we made. We thoroughly vetted TPAC. They are approved to SAE-AS81820 for the parts we received. They provided us with the certs and we verified it on the QPL. Both TPAC and Godfrey are approved under AS81820. The products were made in China by their subsidiary Godfrey, which according to the most recent filings they still control. By the way, the folks who made the bearings are TPAC guys, the TPAC engineer, manufacturing engineer, quality engineer and McKay. So to answer your questions, Godfrey made the parts and both TPAC and Godfrey qualified. The plant that was inspected was the TPAC/Godfrey plant. That is the plant that we inspected. But what really matters is who is approved. Godfrey CAGE Code SNV89 and TPAC CAGE Code 6CF15 are both approved. That was what I needed to accept the parts and that is what my customer needed to accept the sub-assembly from me. By the way, the bearings were pretty good. They did exactly what they were supposed to do and looked good. The parts were identified with both CAGE Codes.
As far as "barely qualify" they either qualify or they don't. You can't be barely pregnant. You are or you aren't. How they get qualified is between them and the qualifying agency. If it is good enough for Pax River it's good enough for me. I can say this, to get qualified with any governmental agency, whether it's Pax River or Rock Island or Hill or Warner Robins isn't easy. So to even accomplish that is a big step.
