What is AS9100?

What it is

AS9100 is the aerospace quality management standard, published by SAE and maintained with the International Aerospace Quality Group. The current revision is AS9100D.

It contains ISO 9001 in full, clause for clause, and adds requirements specific to aviation, space, and defense. The additions cluster around risk and program management, configuration management, product safety, counterfeit part prevention, first article inspection, special processes, and the control of externally provided product.

Two sibling standards cover other roles in the same supply chain. AS9110 applies to maintenance organizations. AS9120 applies to distributors, and matters if you stock and resell rather than manufacture.

Certification is registered in a shared industry database that primes can query, which is a meaningful difference from ISO 9001: your customer can verify your certificate without asking you.

When you will hear it

In supplier quality requirements from the primes. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Pratt and Whitney, Collins, and GE Aerospace generally require AS9100D at tier two. Northrop Grumman's supplier quality document lists ISO 9001 third-party registration under one clause code and AS9100 or AS9120 under others, and the clause code on your purchase order tells you which applies to you.

In a bid decision, because AS9100 is often the difference between being able to quote aerospace work and not.

In the United States generally, which holds the largest share of AS9100 certificates in the world.

What the auditor expects to see

Everything ISO 9001 requires, audited to the same depth, plus the aerospace additions.

The additions that catch companies out are first article inspection done to the AS9102 format, configuration management that actually controls which revision was built, counterfeit part controls in purchasing, and product safety treated as an explicit topic rather than an assumption.

Auditor qualification differs too. Aerospace auditors are separately approved, and the audit is scored and reported into the industry database.

Common mistakes

Assuming AS9100 is a small delta. The structure is familiar and the additions are substantial. Companies moving up from ISO 9001 usually find configuration management and first article inspection are new work.

Certifying to the wrong one. A distributor certified to AS9100 rather than AS9120 has bought a harder audit than the customer asked for.

Ignoring the clause code on the purchase order. Primes distinguish carefully between requiring ISO 9001 and requiring AS9100, and the code is the answer to which you need.

FAQ

Does AS9100 include ISO 9001?

Yes. AS9100D contains the full text of ISO 9001:2015 with aerospace additions. A single certificate covers both, and a separate ISO 9001 certificate is usually unnecessary.

Can we get ISO 9001 first and add AS9100 later?

You can, and for a shop new to formal quality systems it is a reasonable path. It costs more in total than going directly to AS9100 if you already know aerospace work is the goal.

Is AS9100 harder to pass?

The audit is more demanding and the auditors are separately qualified. The core system is the same, so the gap is in the additions rather than in the fundamentals.

Do our suppliers need it too?

That depends on the flowdown in your contract. Primes commonly require sub-tier flowdown of quality requirements, and your purchasing process has to implement whatever your customer imposed.