Standard terminology - First Piece Inspection vs. First Article

I'm returning to my quality roots and am a new member here. I have a question regarding semantics. I have a machine shop manager that wants to check his process by a first piece inspection (he called it a 'first article'). Is there a description of 'first article' inspections, 'first piece' inspections, 'in-process' inspections, etc. that I can use to describe the industry 'standard' descriptions of these various terms for my people? It has been so long, I can't find my old notes?! LOL!! Thanks in advance!

 

Rick; in my experience the 1st piece inspection is typically the part that is checked by QC against the inspection requirements after the job set-up is completed. The part inspection will then either approve the production to start or stop production and require more adjustment to bring the part into specification which would then require another 1st piece inspection. The 1st article inspection is the process used by the aerospace industry that would require a supplier to validate (document and provide samples) their product to the specification and present to Customer for their approval. Similar but not quite the same. See link for more 1st article info:
http://standards.sae.org/as9102/

Hope that helps

 

Yessir - that's exactly where my memory was leading me. We've got a group that is ready to go, and I've been trying to gather my thoughts and notes. At one point I had a really nice 'glossary' of terms, oh well - I can rebuild it!
Thanks for the quick response!