The billowing cloud of volcanic ash spewing from Iceland may have been a major pain for air travel, but it also had a positive side. It served up a gentle reminder for me to find out what the heck is going on with AS9100 certification.
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Faster than I could say Eyjafjallajökull, I was on the phone with Timothy Lee of Boeing Co. for the latest details on when an estimated 10,000 AS9100 certificate holders may begin upgrading their certifications to the latest edition of the space, defense, and aviation quality requirements.
Third-party certification to Revision “C” of the standard was initially anticipated to get underway last fall, but was subsequently delayed until April 30 as a companion checklist intended for third-party auditors took longer to publish than expected. Lee says he considers the new document to be a companion assessment standard since it addresses quality management system requirements in addition to containing significantly revised reporting requirements. The launch was delayed a little longer to complete a third-party auditor “reauthentication” initiative.
Lee tells me that the first wave of certification upgrades is now likely to take place by August if all goes according to plan with the auditor reauthentication, which is being managed by the same training firm in Minnesota that handles a similar program for the automotive industry.
“As we looked at going forward with the 2009 version of the standard we wanted to ensure consistent interpretation of the standard. To do that, we wanted to ensure that we had consistent training,” says Lee, who chairs the Other Party Management Team of the International Aerospace Quality Group (IAQG), which administers the AS9100 certification scheme. The group is an international council of aviation, space, and defense quality leaders.
The absence of the checklist had effectively put thousands of certificate holders—many of whom are contractually bound to achieve and maintain certification to the standard by major aerospace and defense customers—in a kind of certification holding pattern.
“At the end of the day, once the auditors are trained and reauthenticated then they can begin to do the update audits,” notes Lee, who said that the training is a combination of online and classroom instruction.
Revision “C” of the standard was published in 2009 as AS9100 in the Americas, JISQ9100 in Asia-Pacific, and EN9100 in Europe. All versions of the 9100 document contain identical requirements, including the verbatim text of international quality management system standard ISO 9001.
Michael J. Dreikorn, a prominent expert on the standard, who led Sustainable Success Alert’s webinar on the new requirements, advises companies to combine the implementation of AS9100C with other mandatory changes that the industry must complete.
“My advice is that they look at AS9100C as a moment of change in their organization, that it shouldn’t be done in isolation,” says Dreikorn. “They should take the opportunity to make it one change as opposed to a number of changes. While they are doing this, if they’ve got some ideas about implementing ISO 14001 or any of the other standards, it’s a good time to consider broader change. But don’t make it too big because it may not be successful.”
Key changes
The latest release of AS9100 incorporates recent changes to ISO 9001, which was updated in November 2008, while introducing new requirements for aviation, space, and defense companies. The common requirements represent the combined effort of aviation, defense, and space industry manufacturers, suppliers, civil airworthiness authorities, certification/registration bodies, as well as related trade associations.
Key changes in the new edition include: a new title to better reflect the document’s applicability to defense and space organizations (Quality management systems—Aviation, space and defense—Requirements) as well as a number of new and enhanced requirements in at least seven key areas of the standard:
7.1.1 Project Management. Drafters incorporated a new requirement here for planning and managing product realization in a structured and controlled way.
7.1.2 Risk Management. Drafters incorporated another new requirement here with respect to the implementation of a risk management process applicable to projects and products. The risk mitigation should address areas such as responsibility, criteria, mitigation, and acceptance.
7.1.3 Configuration Management. Here, drafters moved a requirement from subclause 4.3 to subclause 7.1 and added details on the various activities to be addressed.
7.1.4 Control of Work Transfer. Drafters moved this requirement from subclause 7.5 (Production) to subclause 7.1 to emphasize the need of having a process to plan and control transfer activities.
Product quality and on-time delivery performance. Here, drafters added a requirement for “product conformity” and “on-time delivery” to be measured and appropriate action taken in the event that planned results are not achieved. The intent is to provide a link between the quality management system and organizational performance.
Process to be required to address control of special requirements, critical items, and key characteristics. Key characteristic requirements are unchanged from the previous edition, but the concept of identifying special requirements is new with respect to either the customer or by the organization that requires additional controls (e.g., risk management), and that translates into critical items, which then may flow to key characteristics for variation control.
Formal monitoring of customer satisfaction data. Drafters have added a new requirement to monitor data and develop improvement plans that address deficiencies. The intent is to promote continuous improvement of the product and customer satisfaction.
Companies have 30 months to complete their transitions to Revision “C” of the standard, according to Lee.
The IAQG has made available deployment support material at www.iaqg.org to accompany the release of 9100. This includes a series of frequently asked questions (FAQs) and a 9100 revision overview presentation. The standard can be obtained from national and regional standards publication bodies, including SAE in the Americas (www.sae.org).
“I don’t see any technical challenges,” says Dreikorn. “The biggest challenge is to ensure that all of the auditors out there worldwide understand the intent of the changes to AS9100C. The standardization is the challenge. You can inform a lot of people. You can create a lot of training, but if the tool that you use to train people isn’t mature and isn’t ready for delivery, then the people aren’t going to be calibrated correctly.”
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