AS9100 — Aerospace Companies

(Quality Management Systems)

Background

AS9100 is currently at revision B, and is published by SAE. It includes all of the requirements of ISO 9001 and adds requirements specific to the Aerospace industry. Like ISO 9001, AS9100 is intended to apply to all companies regardless of size, product, or location. However, companies seeking AS9100 registration will in general have products which end up on an aircraft or spacecraft since it is the manufacturers of these crafts which require or at least prefer companies which are registered to AS9100.

For companies who distribute, but do not produce aerospace products AS9120 was developed. The discussion below, applies generally to this standard as well with the exception of product design and production issues.

Challenges to Registration and Beyond

The additions, and therefore challenges, to AS9100 over ISO 9001 are focused primarily around three basic concepts: control, traceability, and regulatory compliance.

  1. For control, AS9100 requires additional management over such activities as product development, process changes, purchasing documentation, and testing documentation. The overriding theme is that assumptions are not allowed. Therefore in an AS9100 Quality Management System, there will typically be more procedural details and work instructions. Little can be left to pure "on-the-job training" since quality and ultimately safety are paramount with aerospace products.
  2. Traceability is another large theme. AS9100 requires that you can trace both products and processes, as well as any related changes. This means that it must be possible to trace the component materials back to their source so that in the case of a recall it can be positively identified as to where the suspect material came from and where all of the product went to. Traceability also extends to product development and configuration management so that companies must be able to trace design/configuration changes through development and implementation so it is clear exactly what products were produced under which configuration.
  3. Regulatory compliance can either be a small or large component of a company’s efforts to achieve registration to AS9100. While AS9100's requirements are not "product based", but "system based", it does require that products meet any applicable regulations. For some products there are few, if any requirements, and for others the requirements are significant. From a QMS perspective appropriate ties must be made to notify regulatory agencies, perform appropriate testing, etc, but these are generally not significant issues to address. The larger hurdle is to address any product design regulations if those regulations have not already been evaluated and addressed.

With the additional requirements of control, traceability, and regulatory compliance it is even more important that companies be careful about how they document their Quality Management System. There is often a tendency to over-document requirements to gain additional controls and traceability, but if a company is not careful it can create documentation that is difficult to use or be in compliance with. Careful reading and interpretation of AS9100 will show that there is a finite group of areas within the QMS that need extra detail over ISO 9001. Even within these areas, the extra documentation and/or detail does not need to be burdensome if it is written carefully and provides the right amount of control, tempered with flexibility.

Clydesdale's Accelerated Registration Program® is specifically designed to manage this balance and to provide a Quality Management system that is not only compliance, but also useful and manageable.
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“Our quality system has helped us a tremendous amount during our rapid growth in the last two years. Thanks for your help and systemic insight.”
—Jack Frickel,
   Electrorack Products Company