One of the most rewarding aspects of working at Fike is that the company designs and manufactures highly specialized, niche products that ultimately help save lives and protect critical equipment. Having a defined place in the market is exciting, but what truly matters is the real-world impact these products have for customers and the people who rely on them. That reality puts a significant responsibility on the quality organization, whose role is to identify and mitigate risks across products, processes and the supply chain. Quality works cross-functionally with engineering, manufacturing, operations, and other teams to eliminate risks where possible and reduce them where they cannot be fully removed, taking a leading role in safeguarding both people and assets.
Quality involvement begins at the earliest stages of production, starting with raw materials. This includes qualifying suppliers, ensuring requirements are clearly communicated through purchase orders, and verifying incoming materials meet specifications. As components move through machining, welding and assembly, quality processes include statistical sampling, dimensional inspections and visual weld inspections to identify issues such as porosity or cracking. Throughout production, inspectors and technicians work closely with manufacturing teams to ensure that every step meets established standards before a product reaches final inspection or testing.
While quality teams can sometimes be perceived as the “bad guy,” the focus is not on blame but on collaboration. Many quality conversations involve delivering difficult news, but the goal is always to understand what happened, why it happened and how it can be fixed. Building strong relationships across teams is critical, as everyone comes to work wanting to do a good job. By removing defensiveness and focusing on problem-solving, quality helps teams improve processes rather than assign fault.
One example of this collaborative approach occurred during a high-pressure bulge test on a welded assembly in the R&D lab. When an operator noticed unexpected deformation during testing, he raised the issue immediately. Quality partnered with manufacturing to investigate and quickly confirmed - using positive material identification - that the part had been made from an incorrect, lower-strength material. Corrective actions were implemented in both receiving and supplier processes, preventing a potentially serious issue from reaching a customer.
For highly regulated customers such as those in aerospace or defense, quality processes are even more rigorous. These products often require tightly controlled, customer-approved procedures and may involve 100 percent inspection of all features and parts. Although time-consuming, these processes are essential and expected by customers who require extremely high confidence in performance. Investments in advanced inspection technologies, including automated coordinate measuring machines with both tactile and vision systems, have enabled the inspection of increasingly small and complex components with very tight tolerances.
Over time, quality at Fike has evolved significantly, driven by increasingly sophisticated customer expectations and tighter industry requirements. Customers demand more technical data, higher precision and greater consistency, which has led to continuous improvement across the organization. Success in quality is measured not only through traditional metrics such as safety, delivery and defect rates, but also through the company’s mission itself: ensuring that employees, customers and end users all make it home safely at the end of the day.