Articles

Changes to AS9100 Standard Coming Soon!

By: Bob Parsons - Aerospace Business Unit Director

As many of you already know by now, the AS9100 is undergoing a significant revision. This revision was originally scheduled to be released in 2009 after release of the revised ISO 9001 standard. In light of the fact that the ISO 9001 standard release date has been moved up to into 2008, the release of the new AS9100 standard may be moved up to as early as November 2008.

For a little bit of background, during the normal course of an international standard release, there are many phases: Coordination draft, Draft International Standard, Final Draft International Standard etc. During the current phase of the release of this standard (Coordination Draft), the IAQG is inviting stakeholders (including Certification Bodies (registrars)) to make comments and provide input that will be taken into account as the standard moves from one phase to an ultimate goal of release in late 2008.

Though the exact wording of this new standard is still being worked out, proposed changes to this standard include clarification of existing elements, additions to existing elements or omissions. The most significant changes being evaluated are as follows:

• Expansion of scope to include the defense sector.
• Addition of requirement for “product conformity” and “on-time delivery” to be measured and appropriate actions taken if planned results are not achieved.
• Addition to the requirement to monitor data and to develop improvement plans that address deficiencies in customer satisfaction data.
• New requirements for planning and managing product realization in a structured and controlled way.
• A new requirement for the implementation of a risk management process applicable to the projects & products to include responsibility, criteria, mitigation & acceptance.
• Configuration management moved to clause 7 plus more details on the different activities to be covered.
• 9100 will introduce the term “essential items” (including key characteristics) that require particular attention throughout product realization and use to assure they are adequately managed.
• Recognition of external certifications: supplier evaluation may include data from external sources.
• Update of the requirement for controlling suppliers.
• First Article Inspection (FAI): Formal requirement to validate the production processes, documentation and tooling and repeat the process when necessary (engineering or manufacturing processes changes).
• Control of work transfers: must have a process to plan and control the transfer activities.

The following are planned to be removed from this new standard:

• Requirements already covered by “contract” or “regulatory requirements” (redundancy): Availability of QMS documentation or records for customers or regulatory authorities and records available to customers or regulatory authorities.
• Not justified requirement for all the organizations: acceptability of selected internal audit tools and periodic validation of test reports for raw material.

NQA will continue to notify our clients in the coming months as new information is released about this new standard. This could include information on further significant additions or changes to the new standard, newly revised release dates or any other information deemed important.

In addition, NQA will evaluate the need for training and/or informational seminars on this new standard and will communicate the dates and locations to our customers over the upcoming year.

You can reach Bob Parsons, NQA’s Aerospace Business Unit Manager, at (978) 635-9256 ext. 233 or via email at rparsons@nqa-usa.com.