The Defense Industry Qualified Product List Program
The Defense Industry Qualified Product List Program initiated by the Presidency of Defense Industries (SSB) was introduced at IDEF'21 Fair. SSB President Prof. İsmail Demir, officials from TRTEST Test and Evaluation Inc., which will carry out the project and industry representatives attended the ceremony.
In his speech at the ceremony, SSB President Demir gave information about the program. He expressed that there is a test and evaluation process following the development and production of defense industry products, but before the test and verification of the platforms or systems, the subsystems and components used in such systems also need to be tested and qualified. “Our main contractor companies generally prefer to use pre-qualified subsystems or components in their products, since it would not be cost and time efficient to carry out the required verification processes during the system supply process. Currently, companies that develop products at subsystem or component level have to have all or part of the testing and verification processes of their products done by foreign accredited institutions in order to obtain the conformity certificates of foreign equivalent products due to technical requirements in some cases. This creates an effect that prolongs processes and increases costs.”
Demir stated that SSB initiated the Defense Industry Qualified Product List Program to eliminate such difficulties and said, “With this program, we aim to establish common and national test procedures to be approved by the industry, to test the products by the help of domestic approved institutions and organizations according to these procedures and register them as qualified products on behalf of the SSB, to ensure that the supports such as EYDEP and etc. to be given to companies in case of need are used for this purpose as well and in the supply contracts, to prioritize the supply of qualified products from companies that are qualified in this context.”
Demir also said that within the scope of the program, they initiated the Project for Identification of Qualified Product Certification Processes in the Defense Industry and Certification of Qualified Products, and that TRTEST will establish national procedures for the products registered in the Defense Industry Presidency Capability Inventory (YETEN). He stated that in the 1st phase of the project, appropriate production of the products (system, subsystem, component, etc.) produced by domestic companies in the Product Library created within the scope of YETEN will be certified, and preparation and approval of product technical specifications / test procedures will be carried out. “We expect all companies in the industry to contribute to this program, which will accelerate our indigenization processes by ensuring that our defense products are qualified with our domestic resources in accordance with our national standards.”
