Aerospace Product Key Characteristics

Jonathan Tibbs

Registered
I work in the Aerospace industry and we're trying to incorporate AS9145 (APQP) into our product development culture. My question is; how should we determine product KC's for products such as a digital circuit card? Emphasis on "how".
 

Sidney Vianna

Post Responsibly
Leader
Admin
First thing is to understand the definition of Key Characteristic. From the IAQG Dictionary:

KEY CHARACTERISTIC (KC)
  1. An attribute or feature whose variation has a significant effect on product fit, form, function, performance, service life, or producibility, that requires specific actions for the purpose of controlling variation. [9100]
  2. An attribute or feature whose variation has a significant influence on product fit, performance, service life, or producibility; that requires specific action for the purpose of controlling variation (reference 9100 and 9110). This definition is further explained as follows: • KCs for a part, subassembly, or system are those selected geometrical, material properties, functional, and/or cosmetic features; which are measurable, whose variation control is necessary in meeting customer requirements and enhancing customer satisfaction. • Process KCs are those selected measurable characteristics of a process whose control is essential to manage variation of part or system KCs. • Substitute KCs may be identified when a customer-defined KC is not readily measurable within the production/maintenance setting and other characteristics may need to be controlled to;nsure conformance. NOTE: Design output can include identification of critical items that require specific actions to ensure they are adequately managed. Some CIs shall be further classified as KCs because their variation needs to be controlled. [9103]
  3. An attribute or feature whose variation has a significant effect on product fit, form, function, performance, service life, or producibility that requires specific actions for the purpose of controlling variation (refer to 3.3). [9116]
  4. The definition in 9100 (see clause 3.3) applies with the following clarification for software. Key characteristics in software are those measurable attributes where variability can be measured by the project and can, if left unchecked, adversely impact the project or product in areas (e.g., memory utilization, response time, functionality, reliability, usability, efficiency, maintainability, portability). [9115]
  5. An attribute or feature whose variation has a significant influence on product fit, performance, service life, or producibility; that requires specific action for the purpose of controlling variation (reference 9103 standard). This definition is further explained as follows:
KCs for a part, subassembly, or system are those selected geometrical, material properties, functional, and/or cosmetic features; which are measurable, and whose variation control is necessary for fulfilling customer requirements and enhancing customer satisfaction.

Process KCs are those selected measurable characteristics of a process whose control is essential to manage variation of part or system KCs.

Substitute KCs may be identified when a customer-defined KC is not readily measurable, within the production/maintenance setting, and other characteristics may need to be controlled to ensure conformance. [9145]
 

Jonathan Tibbs

Registered
Thanks Sidney. I have the definitions but still looking for guidance on how to apply it to digital circuit card manufacturing. For example, one circuit card will have many solder joints (perhaps a thousand), so if we list solder fillet > 75% as a product KC, then do I list it 1000x?
 
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