Compliance
Compliance posture for defense and ITAR work
BELL Machine Works is an ITAR-registered precision CNC machine shop in Gilroy, California, with technical data held in a Microsoft GCC High tenant on U.S. soil under U.S.-person administration. Defense buyers screen suppliers on compliance before they look at a single part. This page is the compliance answer, stated plainly enough to check.
Compliance posture
| ITAR registration | Registered with the U.S. Department of State, Directorate of Defense Trade Controls |
| CAGE code | 18MB0, thirty seconds to verify in SAM |
| Technical data | Microsoft GCC High tenant · U.S. soil · U.S.-person administration |
| Quality system | Documented QMS · digital traveler with in-process checks · ProShop ERP as system of record |
| Traceability | Material certs and lot traceability on every order; mill certs ship with the parts |
| Inspection | In-house CMM; first article inspection on request with full dimensional report |
| Finishing | Through an ITAR-registered finishing house; certs return with the parts |
| AS9100D / ISO 9001 | Compliant. Third-party certification audits scheduled for Q1 2027. |
Where your technical data actually lives
This is the question that eliminates most small shops, and it is usually answered vaguely.
Drawings, models and job data are held in a Microsoft GCC High tenant, Microsoft's government-community cloud, physically located on U.S. soil, with administrative access restricted to U.S. persons. It is the environment built for controlled unclassified information and export-controlled technical data. ITAR work runs there in a separate, isolated environment from our commercial work, from quote through delivery; controlled technical data does not enter the commercial system at all.
Most shops our size run on commercial cloud storage with whoever has the login. That is a real ITAR exposure and a real reason a program office says no. Ours doesn't have that problem, and it means an export-controlled drawing can be quoted here without a conversation about where the file is going to sit.
To be precise about what this is and isn't: GCC High is infrastructure, not a certification. It describes where your files sit and who can open them, which is what actually determines your exposure.
Why the finishing chain matters
Compliance is usually lost at the anodizer, not at the machine. A shop can hold your drawing correctly, machine the part correctly, then ship it to whichever finisher quoted lowest that month. Our anodize, chem film, passivation and plating run through an ITAR-registered finishing house, with certificates returning alongside the parts. The traceability record stays continuous from mill cert through finish.
What we machine and in what
Precision components and tooling: brackets and structural hardware · fixtures, nests and test tooling · fluid-path and sealing components · non-marring handling and inspection fixtures · insulating and electrically isolating components. Adjacent work already in the shop includes test fixture guides for automated test equipment serving aerospace and defense electronics validation, and aircraft interior mounting assemblies in aluminum 2024 with full material traceability.
Aluminum 6061, 7075 and 2024 · stainless 303, 304, 316/316L, 17-4 PH, 15-5 PH · titanium Grade 5 · Inconel 625 and 718 · PTFE, PEEK, Delrin and UHMW for insulating, chemically resistant and non-marring applications. Finishing to MIL-A-8625 anodize, MIL-DTL-5541 chem film, AMS 2700 and ASTM A967 passivation, plating, and hydrogen de-embrittlement bake. MIL-STD-130 laser engraving of part and lot numbers.
What to ask any shop before you send a drawing
Worth asking us too. If a supplier can't answer these in a sentence each, that's the answer.
- Are you ITAR registered, and can you provide your registration status?
- Where does my technical data physically sit, and who administers it? "The cloud" is not an answer. Ask for the tenant type and whether administrators are U.S. persons.
- Is ITAR work separated from commercial work, or does everything sit in one system with different permissions?
- Who does your finishing, and are they ITAR registered? This is where the chain usually breaks.
- Does material traceability ship with the parts, or on request?
- Can you produce a first article inspection report, and in what format?
- What is your CAGE code? It takes thirty seconds to verify in SAM. Ours is 18MB0.
- Is your quality system documented, and is there a traveler on every job?
Standard tolerance ±0.001", 5-axis work envelope 8" × 8" × 3", 45,000 RPM spindle, in-house CMM. No minimum order quantity. Two-week standard lead time from approved drawing; rush quoted same day. We sign NDAs as a matter of course and treat every design as confidential by default.