Certification / Accreditation

AS 9100 Aerospace manufacturers

AS9100 is the international quality management standard for the aviation, space and defence sector, built directly on ISO 9001 with additional industry-specific requirements layered on top. It covers everything from product safety and configuration management to counterfeit parts prevention and risk management specific to flight-critical work.

At its core, it is ISO 9001 plus the extra discipline the aerospace supply chain demands; you cannot hold AS9100 without also meeting ISO 9001 in full. The current edition is Revision D (2016), based on ISO 9001:2015. It is due for a major update, rebranded as IA9100 to align with the upcoming ISO 9001:2026 revision, expected in late 2026.

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Who it’s for and what’s involved

Relevant if you are:

Designing, developing or manufacturing aviation, space or defence products

Providing maintenance, spares or post-delivery support in the sector

Bidding for contracts where AS9100 is a named requirement

Already ISO 9001 certified and moving into aerospace supply chains

Achieving certification involves:

Meeting all ISO 9001 requirements in full

Implementing aerospace-specific controls: configuration management, product safety, counterfeit parts prevention

Running internal audits and reviews

Passing an external certification audit against the combined standard

How Q! supports certification

ISO 9001, with the extra discipline aerospace demands

We treat AS9100 as ISO 9001 plus a clearly defined extra layer, not a separate system to build from scratch. If you already hold ISO 9001, we focus the gap assessment on what’s genuinely additional: configuration management, product safety processes, and counterfeit parts prevention, rather than re-litigating ground you have already covered.

Already ISO 9001 certified? Aerospace adds a defined layer, not a different standard.

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Mini FAQs

No, but it includes all of it. AS9100 incorporates every ISO 9001 requirement and adds aviation, space and defence-specific clauses on top: configuration management, product safety, counterfeit parts prevention, and operational risk management among them. You cannot be AS9100 certified without also meeting ISO 9001 in full.

AS9100 is being rebranded IA9100 as part of a wider move by the International Aerospace Quality Group to harmonise the sector standard globally, timed to align with the ISO 9001:2026 revision expected in September 2026. Detail is still emerging, but expect the changes to mirror ISO 9001’s, plus whatever aerospace-specific updates the IAQG decides are warranted.

No, the two serve different roles in the supply chain. AS9120 is for organisations that procure and resell parts without altering them; AS9100 is for those that design, develop or manufacture. If your role changes, for instance you start performing work that affects product characteristics, you would need to move to AS9100 rather than AS9120.

AS9100 requires you to plan, implement and control processes for preventing counterfeit or suspect counterfeit parts entering your product. In practice that means training staff to recognise the risk, controls on where you source parts from, traceability requirements, and a process for quarantining and reporting anything suspect. AS6081 provides much more detailed guidance if counterfeit risk is a significant part of your business.

Yes, the standard applies regardless of size, and plenty of small specialist suppliers hold it. The discipline required is the same whatever your scale, but a smaller business often finds it easier to embed because there are fewer layers of process to align.