AS9100-8.1.2 Configuration Management
- Thread starter gary853
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John Predmore
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You describe yourself as a small Metrology Lab. From this description, I assume you provide a service and no tangible products, such as gages.
AS9100 states:
"8.1.2 Configuration Management
The organization shall plan, implement, and control a process for configuration management as appropriate to the organization and its products and services in order to ensure the identification and control of physical and functional attributes throughout the product lifecycle. This process shall:
a. control product identity and traceability to requirements, including the implementation of identified changes;
b. ensure that the documented information (e.g., requirements, design, verification, validation and acceptance documentation) is consistent with the actual attributes of the products and services."
8.5.2 Identification and Traceability
"The organization shall maintain the identification of the configuration of the products and services in order to identify any differences between the actual configuration and the required configuration."
I have never been in charge of a Metrology Lab, but I will go out on a limb for you. Let’s use an example that you measure castings on a CMM. There are options when measuring on a CMM. You could produce a locating fixture or you could set-up each time on locating blocks and pins. There are tradeoffs between the options. When you measure each hole in the casting, someone has to decide whether to use plug gages, or hole mics, or the CMM. Whenever you measure a hole with a CMM, you could take 12 points or 24 points or any number of points. The tradeoff is time versus a better-fit approximation of the hole. Your customer should have provided a part drawing or a CAD model which defines part geometry requirements. However, fixturing options and method and order of measurements in your shop will not be identified on the part drawing, and may not be established in the PO. These decisions should be recorded, in the event this same part or same type of part is measured by your lab in the future.
The collection of decisions you make in your lab in order to provide CMM service could, in my example, be called a planned configuration for your service. The process of making and managing these configuration decisions is configuration management.
Imagine your front office plans one operation in a particular job using a 2 mm probe tip, but on the day the part is measured, the CMM operator substitutes a 4 mm tip because the 2 mm is damaged. That deviation from plan must be recorded somewhere, and that substitution becomes part of the actual configuration used on this particular job order (AS9100 8.5.2).
AS9100 states:
"8.1.2 Configuration Management
The organization shall plan, implement, and control a process for configuration management as appropriate to the organization and its products and services in order to ensure the identification and control of physical and functional attributes throughout the product lifecycle. This process shall:
a. control product identity and traceability to requirements, including the implementation of identified changes;
b. ensure that the documented information (e.g., requirements, design, verification, validation and acceptance documentation) is consistent with the actual attributes of the products and services."
8.5.2 Identification and Traceability
"The organization shall maintain the identification of the configuration of the products and services in order to identify any differences between the actual configuration and the required configuration."
I have never been in charge of a Metrology Lab, but I will go out on a limb for you. Let’s use an example that you measure castings on a CMM. There are options when measuring on a CMM. You could produce a locating fixture or you could set-up each time on locating blocks and pins. There are tradeoffs between the options. When you measure each hole in the casting, someone has to decide whether to use plug gages, or hole mics, or the CMM. Whenever you measure a hole with a CMM, you could take 12 points or 24 points or any number of points. The tradeoff is time versus a better-fit approximation of the hole. Your customer should have provided a part drawing or a CAD model which defines part geometry requirements. However, fixturing options and method and order of measurements in your shop will not be identified on the part drawing, and may not be established in the PO. These decisions should be recorded, in the event this same part or same type of part is measured by your lab in the future.
The collection of decisions you make in your lab in order to provide CMM service could, in my example, be called a planned configuration for your service. The process of making and managing these configuration decisions is configuration management.
Imagine your front office plans one operation in a particular job using a 2 mm probe tip, but on the day the part is measured, the CMM operator substitutes a 4 mm tip because the 2 mm is damaged. That deviation from plan must be recorded somewhere, and that substitution becomes part of the actual configuration used on this particular job order (AS9100 8.5.2).
You will have many more "interpretational questions" such as this. The AS9100 standard, despite what some pundits might say otherwise, is a model for suppliers of flight hardware. As your organization doesn't fit that mold, you will be in for many challenges. Some will require contorted interpretations, just to appease an auditor.
The right model for a metrology lab would be ISO 17025. AS9100 doesn't fit your mold.
Thanks Sidney
The AS9100 is not a good fit for Metrology lab and you will spend more time explaining why you don't do it and the exclusins that you will need to meet the requiremnts. Furthermore, companies will not visit you becuase they think that you do not meet the requirments of ISO 17025.
The AS9100 is not a good fit for Metrology lab and you will spend more time explaining why you don't do it and the exclusins that you will need to meet the requiremnts. Furthermore, companies will not visit you becuase they think that you do not meet the requirments of ISO 17025.
Thanks for the input. We are currently certified to 17025-2015.
We wanted to expand our presence in the aerospace industry, metrology, 100% visual inspection, sorting.
Thanks for the additional details about 17025 certified.
So, why not limit the scope of AS9100D certification to Visual Inspection and Sorting Services? No need to include the cal lab in the scope of AS9100.
But, even then, be aware. The business world is full of broken dreams by organizations that thought achieving certification would lead them to additional business. Sometimes, the dream doesn’t come true.
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