AS9003 vs. AS9100 - Are the requirements of AS9003 included in AS9100?

[vanputten]

Hello All:

Are the requirements of AS9003 included in AS9100? Is AS9003 a subset of requirements from AS9100 specificaly for organizations involved only in inpection and test?

Is the structure of AS9100 sort of like the old structure of ISO 9001:1994 where there were other versions (9002, 9003) for diffeent types of organizations?

I am trying to learn about AS9003.

Thank you, Dirk van Putten

[Marc]

We need an aerospace expert for this one. Sidney, do you know the answer to this one?

[Sidney Vianna]

AS9003 is a standard, based on the obsoleted ISO 9003:1994. The intent of the AS9003 document, which is a model based on final inspection and test, is for small, non-design responsible, make-to-print shops. There are only 3 CRBs accredited for AS9003, but few OEMs are flowing down AS9003, so that document might end up being obsoleted.

AS9100, presently at Rev. B, is an ISO 9001:2000 based document, with many Aerospace specific additional requirements.

I would not say that AS9003 is a subset of AS9100, since they are based in different standards, but, IN PRINCIPLE, if you were to comply with AS9100, you should be also in compliance with AS9003.

[RCW]

Originally Posted by Sidney Vianna

......but few OEMs are flowing down AS9003, so that document might end up being obsoleted.

AS OF RIGHT NOW, Boeing's Quality Mangement System Requirements for Suppliers (BQMS)(document D6-82479), requires suppliers to be either AS9100 registered or AS9003 compliant. (I say AS9003 compliant since we have never been pressed to seek registration on it, and have been audited several times by Boeing in regards to AS9003.) My Boeing quality rep confirms that AS9003 is for smaller, build-to-print shops, which is the category my company falls in.

I was wondering if anybody ever heard anything about AS9003 being updated to mirror 9000:2000? I doubt that it will but as long as Boeing makes this one of their requirements, I don't see AS9003 going away anytime soon.

[KimLoree]

Dirk,

I agree with Sidney and RCW's assessment. Here's one definition I found:

AS9003 is based on ISO 9001:1994 and adds specific requirements for the outsourced inspection and test quality system providers. AS9003 has less stringent requirements compared to AS9100 due to the scaled back nature of operations of such organizations.

It might help to know that:
International Standards - AS91XX - Are recognized globally
Americas Standards - AS90XX - May become a 91XX if approved by the International Aerospace Quality Group.

May I ask why you are looking into AS9003? My company is an aerospace supplier and we have never been asked to show compliance with AS9003 by any of our customers. We are always asked if we are AS9100 3rd party ceritfied, which we accomplished in Feb. 2004.

RCW, I have also heard that they are looking at bringing AS9003 into the ISO9000:2000 format.

[vanputten]

Hello KimLoree:

I started this thread becasue one of our aerospace customers is asking us to be certified to AS9003. We are complaint to AS9100 but not certified. We are certified to TS 16949.

We had never heard of AS9003.

Thank you for all of the responses, Dirk

[Sidney Vianna]

Last week I became a member of the team rewriting AS9003.

At this point we are going over the AS9100B document to identify requirements that could be deleted, in order to keep AS9003 a "less than 9100" document.

However, it seems that a consensus has already been reached that ALL of ISO 9001:2000 will be in AS9003.

[vanputten]

Hello Sidney:

I realize you just joined the AS9003 revision group but I am hoping you can seek out some feedback to my comments below. My rant below is NOT directed at you but I am hoping you can represent my thoughts or gather some feedback from the AS9003 revision group.

How will a revised AS9003 standard (with all of ISO 9001:2000) differ in content and purpose from AS9100? I thought AS9100 was the sector specific version of ISO 9001:2000? It continues to confuse me why the Aerospace industry beleives they need AS9100, company specific requirements like Boeing Quality Management System (BQMS) and now a revised standard (AS9003) that used to be applied to organizations that provided inspection and test but now will include all of ISO 9001:2000.

Where do we draw the line between standardization and standards? Could we just stick with AS9100, minimize the number of standards, and simplify things for the users? This would also simplify things for the conformity assessment world and the aerospace customers. A simliar simplification happened when ISO 9001 / 90002/ 9003 were combined into ISO 9001:2000. Every standard has to be managed for content, interpretations of intent, implementions, and conformity assessment.

The world of quality does not need more standards. The world of quality needs more oversight and support for the current standards and their users.

Thank you, Dirk