Fabrication & Fixtures

The Fabrication Center, opened in 1985, is a group dedicated to creating innovative equipment and full facilities through collaborative involvement with MGA lab personnel. Our innovations often start with a complex problem faced by one or more of our customers. MGA test engineers work with our customers to gain an in-depth understanding of the challenge they are facing. The test engineers then work with design engineers at the Fabrication Center to come up with new equipment suitable for the issue. The experience of our test engineers combined with the expertise in our Fabrication Center allows us to build industry leading solutions, giving our labs the most advanced capability in the industry. New equipment and capabilities are thoroughly evaluated in MGA’s internal laboratories prior to being made available as equipment products. Our unique position as a group dedicated to innovative equipment design and manufacturing offers the most comprehensive equipment solutions available.

The MGA Advantage

At MGA, we provide a full-service fixture solution. Our highly skilled team manages every step, ensuring accuracy, durability, and compliance with your exact specifications. 

Our Process:

• Design: Collaborating closely with clients to create fixtures that perfectly meet testing and production requirements
• CNC Machining: Using state-of-the-art 3-axis and 5-axis CNC machines for maximum precision
• Fabrication and Assembly: Expert welding, milling, and fabrication, bringing your fixture to life
• CMM Checkout: We conduct a thorough inspection using Coordinate Measuring Machines (CMM) to ensure every fixture meets the highest quality standards

Our longstanding experience in testing and fabrication allows us to provide simple, sturdy, and user-friendly fixtures to facilitate your testing campaigns. All testing parameters are considered, and a thorough analysis during our design processes ensures that all requirements are met. Once built, all fixtures undergo rigorous testing and dimensional validation to ensure the quality of each fixture.

Categories of Fixtures Supported:

Seating Fixtures:

With a large inventory of stock materials and base plates, our teams are available to support all your seating fixture needs in design, analysis, manufacturing, testing, and dmensional validation. The table below outlines fixtures currently supported by our team.

We also offer all types of peripheral fixtures to support custom angles on heel plates & luggage tables, as well as program specific D-ring fixtures.

Interior & Exterior fixtures

Interior & exterior components undergo a wide range of component level testing. Whether it be environmental exposure, vibration, or safety testing, our fixture fabrication team has cost friendly options for all components. With the ability to design, simulate, and machine fixtures of high precision, or simply build a holding fixture out of extruded aluminum and 3D printed interface blocks, MGA has solutions available to all components listed in the table below.

 Aircraft fixtures

As part of our support to the aircraft industry, we’ve developed a good understanding of testing requirements and fixture needs. MGA is capable of design and manufacturing fixtures and adaptor plates/blocks to ensure the units under test are secured properly throughout their testing campaigns. We also have universal fixturing solutions (i.e. pitch and roll fixtures) that have been designed, proven out, and used internally for years now. 

Aerospace fixtures

The space advancement industry’s boom has yielded to more advanced technologies being tested for extreme environmental conditions to ensure the success of their missions. As a testing and equipment provider, we’ve engaged with our customers to support the fast development and evaluation of these technologies. With stringent requirements on vibration and shock testing, we’ve developed a good understanding of these requirements and furthermore, our ability to design, and manufacture reliable solutions.  The below examples outline different solutions developed for high frequency, and high shock level testing.

‍

Custom fixtures

Being in the R&D service industry, we understand that some requirements can be unique. Our decades of experience in custom testing for static, dynamic, durability, and environmental requirements allows us to provide fixturing solutions adequate to these components and requirements (see below table for a couple of examples).

 3D printing

With standard fixtures being made of metal, they are often designed and manufactured to withstand higher loads and frequencies. Such fixtures would not be considered as financially viable solutions for less stringent requirements, like environmental testing or dimensional testing for instance. With a network of 3D printers across our laboratories nationwide, we offer holding fixtures at competitive costs to facilitate these types of tests (see table below examples).

 Fixture Validation using CMM & 3D Scanning

Using CMM and 3D scanning, MGA verifies that all critical fixation points are within ±1mm of nominal coordinates.

Validation Process:

1. Fixture Fabrication & Assembly – Fixtures are built to request specifications.

2. CMM/3D Scan Inspection – High-precision metrology tools measure fixation points.

3. Tolerance Verification – Measured data is compared against nominal design coordinates.

4. Validation Report – A detailed report documents all measurements and compliance.

5. Customer Sign Off – Customer reviews and approves the validation report.

6. Fixture Delivery – The validated fixture is shipped to the customer or MGA test lab.

This data-driven quality assurance approach guarantees that our fixtures deliver repeatability, accuracy, and reliability.

On-Site Fixture Validation

MGA also offers on-site fixture validation services for non-MGA fixtures. Whether you need revalidation or verification of existing tooling we can deploy our metrology-grade equipment & personnel to your location.