AN ASSESSMENT OF THE QUALIFIED MANUFACTURER LIST (QML)

The Qualified Manufacturer List (QML) approach, detailed in MIL-I-3853 5, General Specification for Integrated Circuits (Microcircuit) Manufa cturing, embraces many of the commercial practices employed by high vo lume microcircuit suppliers, Nevertheless, with the availability of hi ghly reliable and lower cost commercial parts, the QML approach become s unnecessary and undesirable. In this paper we attempt to show why US government support of the QML program is leading the military and gov ernment to unaffordable access to out-dated technologies, damaging our country's military and avionics position. We will present information to show why we support the retraction of MIL-PRF-38535 and any other documents which imply that QML parts are superior to commercial parts, including those of QPL, MIL-STD-454, and MIL-HDBK-217 (now prohibited from use in all new Army programs).