Handbook · 22 chapters, free to read online

The FAI and Production Readiness Kit Handbook

A complete, practical way for aerospace suppliers to take a new or changed part from the order to steady production: plan the first article, make the process ready, release every setup on evidence, run the first article once, and send a package that comes back approved.

Start reading: chapter 1 The kit's tools

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The problem it solves

In most small aerospace shops the first article is treated as an inspection event: the part is made, the inspector measures it, the forms are filled in. When it goes wrong, it goes wrong for reasons decided weeks earlier: a change nobody recognized as a trigger, a part made on a prototype route, a gauge that could not resolve the tolerance, a fixture still being adjusted, a balloon missing from Form 3, a plater the customer never approved. The cost is a second first article, a late first shipment and a customer who checks everything twice. This handbook is the operating manual for the FAI and Production Readiness Kit. It treats the first article as the last step of a launch, sets out one workflow from the order to steady production, who does what, which tool to use at each stage, the weekly and monthly rhythm, and how to set it up in thirty days.

Who it is for

Quality managers and quality engineers who own first articles; manufacturing engineers, program managers and planners who launch new parts; the plant manager who chairs the readiness review.

When to use it

When first articles come back rejected or take two attempts; when you are launching more new parts than before; when a customer's scorecard or audit finds first article or change-control gaps; or before a surveillance audit, where first articles are among the records auditors sample most.

How to use this handbook

Read chapters 1 to 3: why launches go wrong, the kit's tools, and the workflow they run.
Agree the roles in chapter 4 with your plant manager before you change anything.
Read chapter 5 for first article inspection in plain words, then chapters 6 to 13, one stage at a time.
Follow the thirty-day setup in chapter 17, using the tools named at each step.
Run the weekly and monthly rhythm in chapter 15 from the first week, and track the measures in chapter 16.
Use the worked example in chapter 18 to see every tool used on one new part, and give your plant manager the one-page summary in chapter 19.
Pin the quick reference in chapter 20 where launches are planned.

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
First article inspection (FAI)	A complete, independent and documented verification that the production process makes a part meeting every requirement of the drawing and the order. AS9102 sets the aerospace requirements.
Full FAI	A first article that verifies every characteristic.
Partial FAI (delta FAI)	A first article limited to the characteristics a change could have affected, with the reason and scope recorded.
Trigger	An event that calls for a full or partial first article.
Form 1, Form 2, Form 3	The AS9102 forms for part number accountability, product accountability (materials, special processes, functional tests) and characteristic accountability.
Ballooned drawing	A copy of the drawing with a unique number on every characteristic and note.
Characteristic	Any dimension, tolerance, note, specification or other requirement that can be inspected or verified.
Key characteristic (KC)	A characteristic whose variation significantly affects fit, function, performance, service life or producibility.
Production process verification	Showing that the production process can make parts that meet requirements (AS9100D 8.5.1.3); a first article is one way.
Production readiness review	A structured review, before the first article, of whether everything needed to make the part is in place, ending in a recorded decision.
First piece	The first part after a setup or a change, inspected before the run continues.
Inspection plan	The record of how each characteristic is verified: where, how, how often, and what is recorded.
Control plan	The document listing, for each operation, the characteristics controlled, the method, the frequency and the reaction plan.
Traveler	The document that carries a job through the shop, with every operation in sequence and space to record who did each one.
Validation (of tooling, equipment or programs)	Showing, before use, that they produce parts that meet requirements.
APQP	Advanced product quality planning: a phased method for planning a new product and its process; AS9145 sets it out for aviation, space and defense.
PPAP	Production part approval process: the evidence that the production process can make the part consistently; AS9145 includes it.
Capability (Cpk)	A measure of how well a process centers its output within the tolerance, compared with its variation.
Launch	The move of a new or changed part into production.
NCR	Nonconformance report: the record of a nonconformity and its disposition.

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The workflow, frequencies and starting points here are our own practice. AS9102, AS9145 where it applies, and your customers' purchase orders set the actual requirements, and customers often add forms, submission systems, approval steps and shorter lapse periods; theirs come first.

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.