AS9100 and EN 9100: the aerospace quality standard

One standard, three names

AS9100, EN 9100 and JISQ 9100 are the same standard. It is written by the International Aerospace Quality Group and then published regionally: AS9100 by SAE International in the Americas, EN 9100 in Europe, JISQ 9100 in Japan and the wider Asia-Pacific. The content is identical, so a supplier certified to one is not holding something weaker or stronger than a supplier certified to another.

This trips people up in tenders more than it should. A European prime asking for EN 9100 and an American one asking for AS9100 are asking for the same management system, and a certificate issued under either name answers both. What differs is the publishing body and the document number on the cover.

It contains ISO 9001, and adds to it

The 9100 standards incorporate the full text of ISO 9001 and then add the requirements that safety-critical work demands on top: configuration management, product safety, counterfeit part prevention, risk-based thinking applied to the product rather than only to the business, and far tighter control over what your own suppliers do.

That structure is why an ISO 9001 system is the right foundation and not the finished job. Most of the clause numbering will look familiar; the additions are where audits actually go.

Which of the series applies to you

There are three, and the certificate has to match the work you actually do:

• 9100 - aviation, space and defence organisations that design or make the product. This is the one most suppliers mean.
• 9110 - aviation maintenance organisations, covering maintenance, repair and overhaul.
• 9120 - distributors and stockists who buy, hold and resell parts without making or repairing them. Traceability and counterfeit-part control carry most of the weight here.

The rule of thumb: if you make or modify the product, 9100. If you only move it, 9120. If you maintain it, 9110. A distributor certified to 9100 has a certificate that does not describe its business, and an auditor will say so.

This one you really can be certified to

Unlike the NATO publications, 9100 has a proper certification scheme, and it is stricter than a normal ISO one. The certificate must come from a certification body accredited under the IAQG's Industry Controlled Other Party scheme, not from any body that happens to offer it. Certified organisations are then listed in OASIS, the IAQG's supplier registry, which is where a prime checks whether your certificate is real and what its scope says.

Two practical consequences. Your certificate is publicly verifiable, so its scope wording matters as much as holding it at all. And a certificate from a body outside the ICOP scheme may not be accepted by the customer who asked for it, however genuine the audit was.

How it relates to the NATO standards

If you supply defence as well as aerospace, the two worlds meet at AQAP 2310: it contains the EN 9100 requirements and adds NATO's on top, the same way AQAP 2110 builds on ISO 9001. So a supplier already running a 9100 system is most of the way to AQAP 2310, and the remaining work is the NATO delta - government quality assurance, contract risk and the customer's right of access. The AQAP overview sets out how that family fits together.

Not the standard you were looking for?

ComplyTrain is not limited to the standards written up on this site. The product is built around a requirement tree, and one can be built for any standard, agreement or contractual specification that has requirements in it. The pages here are what we have documented so far, not the boundary of what the system handles. We add standards on request, and the list grows steadily.