What Is Aerospace Quality AS 9100?

In the aerospace industry, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their suppliers spent decades wrestling with a sprawling set of often conflicting standards and regulations. The sheer number and complexity of those requirements, and the fact that they frequently contradicted one another, drove up the cost of producing aerospace goods and did little to address the issues that matter most in aviation: quality, safety, and reliability.

So what is the aerospace quality standard AS9100, and how did it come about? AS9100 is the quality management system standard the aviation, space, and defense sector adopted to replace that patchwork with one shared rulebook. This article explains what the standard is, where it came from, what it requires beyond ISO 9001, and who needs to be certified to it.

What Is the Aerospace Quality Standard AS9100?

The aerospace quality standard, AS9100, is the internationally recognized quality management system for organizations that design, build, and service products for the aviation, space, and defense industries. It is built directly on the ISO 9001 quality management standard and then adds roughly 100 aerospace-specific requirements covering risk, safety, and reliability. The standard is published and maintained by regional bodies under a single global scheme: in the Americas, SAE International maintains the AS9100 standard; in Europe the standard is published as EN 9100 (today through ASD-STAN, the successor to the European Association of Aerospace Industries, or AECMA); and in Asia the Society of Japanese Aerospace Companies (SJAC) maintains JIS Q 9100.

All three regional documents share the same technical content, and the standard is now on Revision D (released in 2016 as 9100:2016). That common baseline lets an aerospace supplier hold one certification that customers recognize worldwide, which is exactly the consistency the industry lacked for years.

The Problem of the Past

For many years, OEMs used a hodgepodge of customer and regulatory requirements, such as the US Department of Defense standard MIL-Q-9858, and layered company-specific demands on top to arrive at a wide-ranging, inexact, and often burdensome set of rules. Worse, these so-called standards were prone to change from one project to the next, so they were not quality standards in the true sense.

Because so many standards existed, and because the aerospace supply chain was growing more complex as more work was subcontracted by the major aerospace companies, it was difficult for any single supplier to know which rules applied and why.

From Military Standards to ISO 9001

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the worldwide drop in defense spending in the late 1980s, defense contractors began branching into the already active and highly competitive commercial aerospace business. Around the same time, the US Department of Defense moved toward a single process initiative, which called for dropping contract-specific requirements in favor of commonly accepted commercial practices. The hope was that fulfilling contracts could be standardized and simplified, producing greater consistency throughout the supply chain.

As luck would have it, the International Organization for Standardization had developed the first ISO 9000 quality standard, and it quickly became the de facto quality standard for the aerospace business. ISO 9000 was well suited to standardization, but it was too general to serve as the aerospace quality standard for long. It did not address industry-specific needs, and it did not cover the regulatory requirements for safety, reliability, and maintainability that are unique, and crucial, to aerospace.

Creating an Industry-Specific Standard

A group of major US aerospace prime contractors gathered to create the American Aerospace Quality Group (AAQG) under the American Society for Quality (ASQ) umbrella in 1995. Their first attempt at an aerospace quality standard, ARD 9000, was released the following year. Shortly thereafter the AAQG aligned itself with the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), refined ARD 9000, and released it as AS 9000 in 1997. That document was the direct ancestor of today’s AS9100.

Global Reach

AS 9000 focused on the issues of paramount importance to the aerospace industry: the relationships and requirements between regulatory agencies and the business, the size and intricacy of the vendor-supplier-buyer community, and especially the core processes that affect safety, reliability, performance, and maintenance. As the aerospace business expanded across the globe in the 1990s and beyond, the standard was extended worldwide and evolved into the harmonized AS9100, EN 9100, and JIS Q 9100 family coordinated by the International Aerospace Quality Group (IAQG).

What Does AS9100 Require Beyond ISO 9001?

AS9100 keeps every clause of ISO 9001 and then adds the controls that aviation, space, and defense customers cannot do without. The additions concentrate on the failure modes that carry the highest consequences in flight hardware.

Key additions include formal risk management across operational processes, configuration management to keep design, build, and as-delivered records aligned, and counterfeit-parts prevention to keep fraudulent components out of the supply chain. The standard also requires product safety controls, first article inspection (FAI) to verify that the first production part matches the design, and the identification of key characteristics whose variation must be controlled. Together these requirements turn a general quality system into an aerospace quality management system fit for safety-critical work.

Who Needs AS9100 Certification?

In practice, AS9100 certification is a condition of doing business across most of the aerospace supply chain. Prime manufacturers expect it from the suppliers who machine, fabricate, assemble, and process their parts, and many will not place a purchase order with a supplier that cannot show a current certificate.

The 9100 family also has close relatives for specific roles: AS9110 applies to maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) organizations, and AS9120 applies to distributors and stockists that handle aerospace parts. Accredited certificates are recorded in the IAQG’s OASIS database so that customers can verify a supplier’s status. If your organization sells into aviation, space, or defense programs, AS9100, AS9110, or AS9120 is almost certainly part of the entry ticket.

How Is AS9100 Different from ISO 9001?

AS9100 is not a competitor to ISO 9001; it is a superset of it. Since the 2016 revision, AS9100 follows the same Annex SL high-level structure and ten-clause framework as ISO 9001:2015, so the management system backbone, including leadership, planning, support, operation, performance evaluation, and improvement, is identical.

The difference is the aerospace overlay. Where ISO 9001 asks an organization to manage risk in general terms, AS9100 specifies the aerospace practices that must be in place, from configuration management to product safety and counterfeit-parts control. An organization that already runs an ISO 9001 system has a strong head start, and closing the gap to AS9100 is largely a matter of adding the aerospace-specific procedures and records.

What Are the Benefits of AS9100 Certification?

The most immediate benefit is access. A recognized AS9100 certificate opens the door to aerospace contracts that are simply closed to uncertified suppliers, and it reduces the number of customer-specific audits a supplier must endure because one accredited certificate satisfies many buyers at once.

Beyond market access, the discipline of the standard tends to lower the cost of poor quality. Stronger configuration management, first article inspection, and risk controls catch defects earlier, reduce escapes and rework, and improve on-time delivery, which are the performance measures aerospace customers watch most closely.

Learn More

The Bizmanualz AS9100 Aerospace Policies and Procedures Manual includes prewritten aviation quality procedures that conform to the latest Revision D and can be easily edited and customized to fit your organization. You can browse the full set of AS9100 aerospace quality manuals or start by reading what ISO 9001 is to understand the foundation the aerospace standard builds on.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is AS9100 in Simple Terms?

AS9100 is the quality management system standard for the aviation, space, and defense industries. It uses ISO 9001 as its base and adds aerospace-specific requirements for risk, safety, configuration management, and counterfeit-parts control.

Is AS9100 the Same as ISO 9001?

No. AS9100 contains all of ISO 9001 and then adds roughly 100 aerospace-specific requirements. An organization certified to AS9100 also meets ISO 9001, but ISO 9001 alone does not satisfy AS9100.

Who Publishes and Maintains AS9100?

SAE International publishes and maintains AS9100 in the Americas, EN 9100 is published in Europe through ASD-STAN, and JIS Q 9100 is maintained in Japan by the SJAC, all coordinated by the International Aerospace Quality Group.

What Is the Current Revision of AS9100?

The current revision is AS9100 Revision D, released in 2016 as 9100:2016. It aligns the standard with the ISO 9001:2015 structure and strengthened the requirements for risk, product safety, and counterfeit-parts prevention.

Why Do Aerospace Suppliers Need AS9100 Certification?

Most prime aerospace manufacturers require their suppliers to hold AS9100 certification as a condition of doing business. The certificate demonstrates that the supplier controls the quality, safety, and reliability risks that matter in flight hardware.