AS9100 Quality Management System documentation
A guideline for Developing Quality Manuals, ISO 10013 Standard, suggests a documentation structure for AS9100 QMS. This model in the standard proposes use of a three-level model. Most companies I worked with utilize four-level structures instead to include records, A typical four-level documentation structure consists of: 9100 Quality Manual, level 1; 9100 Procedures, level 2; 9100 Instructions, level 3, and 9100 Records – level 4.
If we start from the manual, how are we going to write our quality manual without knowing what standard this manual is for? The quality policy supposes to define it. The policy defines what standard or standards, a company wants to comply with. If you like this idea, your SAE AS9100 QMS will contain five levels as in the following list:
SAE AS9100 Quality Policy – level 1
AS9100 Quality Manual – level 2
9100 Procedures – level 3
9100 Instructions – level 4
9100 Records – level 5
AS9100 – Naming your documents
As you may have noticed, the titles of AS9100 documents in the structure above are quite short. Various companies use different conventions for their document titles. For example, one of my customers titled their quality manual as “SAE AS9100 Quality Management System Quality Manual.”
This tendency to use long titles and document identifiers like “Standard Operating Procedure” most likely comes from regulated industries. Even though I could not find a requirement for such title formats, overwhelming majority of companies still use these apparently outdated and ineffective conventions. If a short name sufficiently describes a document, let’s use it. I suggest streamlining all elements of AS9100 management systems. Consider this and do not make your AS QMS more complicated than it can be.
Numbering your documents
No standard prescribes to give a part or a document its number. It is an industry standard to give a document or a component its name, number and a revision level. Similar to part titles that we discussed above, document numbering conventions are often also may be optimized and simplified.
A company had some 45 employees. They had two part number formats: one for procedures, another for drawings. AS9100 Procedures used XX-XXX number format. Drawings were numbered as XXXXXXX-XXX. One of the drawings had a number 000077-009. Assemblers simplified the system and called it “seven-seven.”
Do these long numbers identify documents? Yes, they do! Are they economical? No, they are not! My customer’s system above allowed seven digits and therefore could deal with ten million documents or part numbers. When I worked with this business, they used some 300 documents. If one plans to grow from 200 – 300 documents to a million, one has a long way to go! It is not only how many documents your QMS uses, reading these long strings with five sequential zeros gave everybody headache. Even though this example looks too complicated, “The Worst Part Number” Grand Prize won my other client. They used 14-digit alphanumeric part numbers!
I hope it is clear that only when extensive part numbers are justified, we do not have other options. If you build helicopters or satellites, you, no doubt, will need millions of parts and therefore will need long part numbers. If not, make your life easy and stay away from all those zeros. The most practical system I worked with used a three-digit format for their part numbers. 202, 203, 204, and so on. Worked just fine!
Another debatable issue with the part-numbering format is part number designation. Some systems associate a part number with a particular part type. For example, 10xxx indicates a procedure, 20xxx indicates a drawing, PLxxx indicates a policy-level document, and so on. My experience with a number of medical device manufacturers has convinced me in the benefits of a “no designation” system. Three systems that used designation I have worked with have failed.
My experience with a few airspace QMS that used designation approaches showed that “no designation” systems are more practical and flexible. Several QMS that used designation I have worked with have failed. Not long ago, one of our airspace clients mentioned that they ran out of range in their AS document numbering format. That management system in the beginning was set up to identify suppliers through a three-digit extension within the part number. While the company grew, the number of supplier increased beyond expectations and eventually the company needed more than 999 suppliers. This resulted in the document number format not being able to support new needs.
To get around this issue, there is a simple solution – a “no designation” system. Part or document numbers in such AS9100 systems are assigned sequential unique numbers. Areas of use, materials, suppliers, and other attributes are not reflected in part numbers. Moving in this direction, you can simplify your system even more. I worked with a company that did not use document No. at all. That documentation system used just document name followed by a revision number, like FAA inspection Procedure 01.
Mark Kaganov is a Director of Operations and a Lead Consultant with Quality Works. Quality Works focuses on AS9100 and other management systems. Quality Works offers international customers quality assurance AS9100 consulting, documentation, internal and supplier auditing and process improvement.
