Boeing 'Strongly Urges' Suppliers to become AS9100 Registered

[Sidney Vianna]

For those in the Aerospace Supply Chain, Boeing suppliers and people interested in developments concerning AS9100, I would like to suggest that you visit http://www.boeing.com/companyoffices/doingbiz/supplier/index.html

Scroll down to the middle of the page and you will have access to the presentation material displayed in the Boeing AS9100 Registrar workshop, which took place last Month in San Diego. According to the material, Boeing will "strongly encourage" their existing suppliers to attain accredited certification to AS9100 and might require new suppliers to do so.

 

[Marc]

Good link! Thanks, Sidney!

 

[RCW]

Let me start off by stating that my company is a Boeing Silver Supplier. Now that the formalities are over.......

I recently received a phone call from a quality person at Boeing. She inquired if we were an ISO certified company. I said yes we are, ISO9002:1994 and working on implementing the 2000 version.

She then asks if we are AS9100 certified. I said no. She inquired if we were seeking AS9100. Again I said no. She said that's acceptable if we aren't but she would have to schedule an audit of our QMS. She asked me when was an acceptable time to come. She meant month-wise, not day or time-wise. She said they had just started contacting their suppliers to set up audits. After finishing talking to her I really don't expect to see anybody much before the end of 2002.

:thedeal: It looks like Boeing perfers suppliers to obtain AS9100 because they don't want to place the time, effort, or money into investigating all their suppliers (makes sense to me).

If your company feels they need AS9100 for marketing reasons or find it easier to deal with companies requiring it, then by all means go out and seek it. As for me, I'll let Boeing twist my arm a little more before I say 'Uncle'.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

More AS9100 news from Boeing

Please see attached a letter from Boeing which indicates that NEW suppliers MUST be 3rd-party certified to AS9100 by an accredited CRB, prior to being accepted as a Boeing suppplier.
For existing suppliers, Boeing strongly encourages 3rd-party certification to AS9100.

So, RCW, my line of thought is:

Boeing is consolidating their supplier base. If they have to choose between a supplier that performs well and has a third-party certification and another supplier that also performs well but does not have an AS9100 accredited certificate, guess who they will keep in their supplier list . . .

Risk management is the name of the game. How much of your aerospace business you want to gamble?

Unfortunately I can only link one document per post. I will link another Boeing document in another post.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

But wait, there is more . . .from Boeing

Here it goes.

 

[RCW]

If they have to choose between a supplier that performs well and has a third-party certification and another supplier that also performs well but does not have an AS9100 accredited certificate, guess who they will keep in their supplier list . . .

On paper, it's the well-performing AS9100 certified company but........there have been cases that contradict this (and that's all I'm going to say on that matter).

The big thing to note in the .pdfs that Sidney attached is where does your company fall in regards to "The Appendix".

Mine landed in Appendix B which meant that AS9003 was applicable. I had to make minor additions to about a half dozen of my ISO9001:2000 procedures so it really wasn't that bad (who me? complain?).

I am assuming that full AS9100 is required for those companies also performing design & development. Is this true out there? Has anybody been EXPLICITLY notified (i.e. talked to a quality rep from Boeing) and been told they fall into Appendix A?

I was expecting the AS9100 requirement to be more along the lines of ISO9001:2000 registration. If you did aerospace design, you have to comply to the full AS9100, if you don't design, you would take an exception to that clause but still be responsible for the rest of AS9100. As of right now, that doesn't seem to be the case. We shall see how this unfolds.........


NOTE: I do not in any way mean to bad mouth Boeing. Of all of our customers, I really do enjoy working with them the most. It is however frustrating sometimes being a small company and dealing with a huge corporation. My hat is off to Boeing for showing some vision in adapting to an industry standard and also in their work to update the information transfer to their suppliers (i.e. updating computer information systems).

 

[BadgerMan]

RCW said:



Has anybody been EXPLICITLY notified (i.e. talked to a quality rep from Boeing) and been told they fall into Appendix A?

We were previously certified to ISO 9001 and compliant with AS 9000. We were certified to the AS 9100 standard in November of 2001.

We completed our BQMS Appendix A transition audit with our Boeing rep. in October of 2001. The request to transition to BQMS Appendix A was in a letter (from the Supplier Management Process Council) dated October 26, 2000.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

The latest from Boeing on Common Industry Standards and Updates is available at http://www.boeing.com/companyoffices/doingbiz/supplier/SIB_PQIT-04-002.pdf

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Another notch

I have just seen a letter from Boeing telling an existing supplier to be AS9100 certified. I assume that most of the suppliers that are not yet certified to an applicable ICOP Standard (AS9100/9110/9120) will be receiving similar letters with certification deadlines ranging from 2006 to 2007.

 

[RCW]

You are correct, Sidney.

As a Boeing supplier, I received my letter late last week. (Kind of ironic that it had the correct address but the wrong company name on it. Quality system? Hmmmmmmm.....)

Boeing suppliers are "expected to select an accredited aerospace certification body and transition to an ICOP certification between June 2006 and June 2007."

More information will be forthcoming in October 2005.

AS9100 registrars must have a big smile on their faces now. On the flipside, my boss is already complaining about having to spend more money for another registration. As for me, I'm just going back to my morning coffee....