What are the AS9100 Auditing Standards?

The AS9100 is an international standard containing requirements for establishing and maintaining a quality management system for the aerospace industry. The assure high levels of customer satisfaction, aerospace industry organizations need to produce, and continually improve, safe and reliable products that meet or exceed the requirements of customers and regulatory authorities. A quality management system is set up by an organization to achieve high levels of customer satisfaction and continual improvement, focusing on common requirements and the reduction of variation and waste in the supply chain. This is done by establishing a quality policy and quality objectives, and establishing the means to a achieve those objectives.

Rather than specify requirements for your final product – what to produce – AS9100 focuses further “upstream” on the processes – or how you produce. AS9100 requires documented systems for controlling the processes you use to develop and produce your products. This standard is based on the idea that there are certain elements every quality management system must have a place in order to ensure that safe, quality products are consistently provided to the customer on time.

AS9100 includes the requirements of ISO 9001:2000 plus additional requirements for a quality management system for the aerospace industry. It was prepared by SAE International: The Engineering Society for Advancing Mobility in Land, Sea, Air and Space, with support from the ISO technical committee responsible for Quality Management and Quality Assurance, which includes representatives from countries around the world.

What is the “Process Approach”?

ISO 9000 Quality Management Systems – Fundamentals and Vocabulary defines a process as a “set of interrelated or interacting activities which transforms inputs into outputs”

In a company, the output of a process often becomes the input to another “downstream” process. For example, when a customer order is received and reviewed by the Sales Department, the output of the “Sales Order Review Process” may be the generation of a production order, which becomes one of the inputs to the production process.

By identifying and managing all “processes” in your company (and the interactions and handoffs between these processes), your company is embraces the “Process Approach” to management.

Taken from a very helpful handout entitled “What every employee needs to know about AS9100″