AQAP: the NATO Allied Quality Assurance Publications

What AQAP stands for

AQAP stands for Allied Quality Assurance Publication. It is not one standard but a family of them, published by NATO and invoked by a contract. When a tender or a purchase order cites an AQAP, that publication's requirements become a condition of the work.

The number after the letters tells you which requirement set applies. AQAP 2110 is the one most suppliers meet first, but a software deliverable, a complex aviation programme, or a contract that only covers final inspection each pull in a different publication.

The publications you are most likely to meet

• AQAP 2110 - NATO Quality Assurance Requirements for Design, Development and Production. It contains the requirements of ISO 9001 supplemented by additional NATO requirements, and it is the default where a supplier both designs and builds.
• AQAP 2131 - NATO Quality Assurance Requirements for Final Inspection and Test. It defines the procedures that apply to final inspection and test, where the customer's confidence rests on the finished item rather than on the whole development process.
• AQAP 2210 - NATO Supplementary Software Quality Assurance Requirements. It is applied on top of AQAP 2110 or AQAP 2310 when what you deliver contains software.
• AQAP 2310 - NATO Quality Management System Requirements for Aviation, Space and Defence Suppliers. It contains the requirements of EN 9100 supplemented by additional NATO requirements, and is aimed at particularly complex aviation, space and defence work.
• AQAP 2105 - NATO Requirements for Deliverable Quality Plans. This is the contract-specific quality plan you produce and hand over, usually as a contractual deliverable in its own right.
• AQAP 2070 - NATO Mutual Government Quality Assurance Process. It governs how one nation's quality authority carries out assurance on behalf of another, so it shapes who comes to verify you rather than what you have to do.
• AQAP 2000 - NATO Policy on an Integrated Systems Approach to Quality through the Life Cycle. The policy the rest of the series sits under.

Which one applies to you

You do not choose. The acquisition authority selects the AQAP based on the quality risk it has identified and the complexity of the contract item, then writes it into the contract. Germany's BAAINBw states the selection rule in those terms, and other NATO nations' quality authorities work the same way.

In practice: if you design and produce, expect AQAP 2110. If the work is complex aviation or space, expect AQAP 2310. If the deliverable contains software, expect AQAP 2210 on top of whichever of those applies. If the contract asks for a quality plan as a deliverable, that is AQAP 2105. Requirements also flow down, so a prime holding an AQAP will pass the relevant parts to its sub-suppliers, and a sub-supplier's gap becomes the prime's nonconformity.

AQAP 2120 and AQAP 2130 were withdrawn

If a template, a supplier manual or an old tender still cites AQAP 2120 or AQAP 2130, it is out of date. AQAP 2110 Edition D, promulgated by the NATO Standardization Office on 24 June 2016, superseded AQAP 2110 Edition 3, AQAP 2120 Edition 3 and AQAP 2130 Edition 3. The transition period ended on 21 September 2018.

The production requirements that used to sit in AQAP 2120 and the inspection and test requirements from AQAP 2130 are now inside AQAP 2110. Check what the contract in front of you actually cites before building a quality system around a publication that no longer exists.

There is no AQAP certificate

This is the most common misunderstanding and it is worth being precise about. You cannot buy AQAP certification the way you buy ISO 9001 certification from an accredited certification body. AQAP conformance is assured through Government Quality Assurance: the customer nation's quality authority verifies your quality system and the specific contract, with a right of access to your premises and records, and to your sub-suppliers'.

In most cases an ISO 9001 certificate evidences the management system underneath, and the AQAP additions are demonstrated to the customer rather than certified by a third party. A supplier describing itself as "AQAP certified" is claiming something that does not exist.

How AQAP relates to ISO 9001 and EN 9100

AQAP 2110 contains the requirements of ISO 9001 and adds NATO's on top. AQAP 2310 does the same with EN 9100, the aerospace quality standard. So the management system you would build for ISO 9001 is the foundation in both cases, and the AQAP work is the delta: configuration management, government quality assurance, risk to contract performance, and the evidence a defence customer expects to be able to reach.