Handbook · 19 chapters, free to read online

The Configuration and Change Control Kit Handbook

One working system for knowing exactly what each part is, changing it on purpose, and making sure every document and program on the floor says the same thing: configuration identification, customer, engineering and process change control, and documented information control, joined up.

Start reading: chapter 1 The kit's tools

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The problem it solves

In a small aerospace shop, configuration, change and document control usually live in three places with three owners: engineering files the drawing, the programmer updates the program, document control issues the new work instruction, and nobody owns the line between them. Changes arrive by email, get implemented by memory, and are finished when the drawing is filed. The result is the most common and most avoidable nonconformance in machining: perfect parts made to a superseded revision, because an old program, setup sheet or characteristic list was still at the machine. This handbook is the operating manual for the Configuration and Change Control Kit. It sets out one system: what a part's configuration is, how every kind of change moves through it, how documents and programs follow it to the floor, who does what, the weekly and monthly rhythm, a thirty-day setup plan, and one real-looking change traced through every tool.

Who it is for

Quality managers and directors who own configuration and change control, engineering and manufacturing engineering leads, document control, and the general manager who sponsors the work.

When to use it

When you have had a wrong-revision NCR or audit finding; when customer changes arrive faster than you can track them; when you take over a quality system; or a quarter before a surveillance or recertification audit.

How to use this handbook

Read chapters 1 and 2: why changes go wrong in small shops, and how the three controls connect.
Agree the roles in chapter 4 and the change board in chapter 5 with your general manager before you change anything.
Follow the thirty-day setup in chapter 14, using the tools named at each step.
Run the weekly change review and the monthly measures in chapter 13 from the first week.
Read the worked example in chapter 15 to see one change move through every tool, and chapter 16 for what auditors ask.
Give your general manager the one-page summary in chapter 17, and keep the quick reference in chapter 18 at the change board.

The chapters

Aegis Insights: how we approach this work

Aegis Insights are our own guidance: how we approach this work and why, from years inside aerospace quality systems. They are not requirements of any standard or customer.

Definitions

Term	What it means here
Configuration	A part's characteristics as defined by its released documents and data, and the documents, programs and plans that make and inspect it.
Baseline	The approved, released configuration of a part at a point in time.
Configuration identification	Recording each part's released revision and everything that defines and makes it.
Status accounting	Recording every change to a configuration, with its effectivity.
Configuration check	Checking a job on the floor against its released configuration.
Engineering change	A change to a product's definition or to the documents and data that carry it.
Process change	A change to how a part is made or inspected, without changing its definition.
ECN	Engineering change notice: the record of one change, from arrival to closure.
Change board	The people who review and approve changes weekly: quality, engineering, production and purchasing at least.
Effectivity	The first lot, serial number, order line or date from which a new revision applies.
Design authority	The organization responsible for the design, which alone can change it.
Point of use	Wherever a document or program is used: a machine control, a cell binder, the inspection bench.
Documented information	Information that is controlled and kept, and its medium: documents and records.
FAI	First article inspection (AS9102). A partial FAI covers what a change affects.
Key characteristic	A feature whose variation significantly affects fit, performance, service life or manufacturability, needing extra control (AS9103).
Flow-down	Passing requirements, including changes, to suppliers through purchase orders.

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Your contracts, your customers' quality clauses and requirements such as AS9102 decide which changes need customer approval, notice or an FAI; this handbook shows how to ask and record the answer. Meeting times, check frequencies and set-up weeks are starting points to fit to your shop.

A management aid, not certification or a registrar audit. Using it does not by itself show conformity to AS9100D or any other standard, and your customers' requirements may add to it.

Clause numbers refer to AS9100D (SAE AS9100 Rev D) unless another document is named. The standards' text is not reproduced here: use your own licensed copy.