The Aerospace Standard, AS9100, Revision C, is available for purchase now at the SAE International Website. This revision includes the requirements of the ISO 9001:2008 standard published in October 2008.

Major changes to this Aerospace standard include:

7.1.1 Project Management: New requirement for planning and managing product realization in a structured and controlled way.

7.1.2 Risk Management: New requirement of implementation of a risk management process applicable to the projects & products; responsibility, criteria, mitigation & acceptance.

7.1.3 Configuration Management: Moved from clause 4.3 to clause 7.1 and added details on the different activities to be covered.

7.1.4 Control of Work Transfer : Moved from clause 7.5 (Production) to clause 7.1 to add emphasis on having a process for planning and control of transfer activities.
Product quality and on-time delivery performance. Added requirement to measure "product conformity" and "on-time delivery" and take appropriate actions if planned results are not achieved. The intent is to provide a linkage between the QMS and organization performance.

Process to address control of Special Requirements: Critical Items and Key Characteristics. Key characteristic requirements remain unaltered but a new concept is added to identify special requirements from the Customer or internal sources that require additional controls (e.g. risk management) that translates into Critical Items that may flow to Key characteristics for variation control.

Formal monitoring of Customer satisfaction data: Added the requirement to monitor data and to develop improvement plans that address deficiencies. The intent is to promote continuous improvement of the product and Customer satisfaction.

Requirements from regulatory authorities: A general requirement has been introduced in 4.1 to address all the applicable statutory and regulatory QMS requirements in the organization's QMS instead of keeping detailed requirements in chapters.

First Article Inspection (FAI): moved to clause 7.5.1.1 and renamed. Production process verification "FAI" is the requirement to validate the production process's documentation and tooling and repeat the process when necessary (i.e. when engineering or manufacturing processes change). The requirement was moved from 8.2.4.2 (measurement) to 7.5.1.1 (production) because it is part of product realization and is not intended to be a follow-on activity.

Difference between Key Characteristics, Special Requirements and Critical Items: Special Requirements are those requirements that have high risks to being achieved, which require their inclusion in the risk management process. Critical Items, including key characteristics, are those items that have significant effect on product realization and use of the product, which require specific actions to assure they are adequately managed.
AS9100C is consistent with ISO 9001:2008 and the length of time to transition is 30 months. Companies will be encouraged to upgrade on their scheduled audit cycle.

Improvement comments from Aerospace OEM's and IAQG regarding what their supplier expectations are from this new standard include :

1. Expect registrar auditors to go deeper into auditing sample sizes;


2. Improve classification of nonconformances, example less opportunities for improvement and more major and minor corrective action identification;


3. 100% compliance expected, less exclusions and improved objective evidence;


4. More Root Cause Analysis (RCAA) tools and methods used. No more "operational /human error" root causes;


5. Improved monitoring and measurement of company objectives, and if applicable why objectives are not being met;


6. Zero tolerance on poor supplier quality and inadequate supplier measurement methods, and lack of performance data.