Reality check · AS9100D
AS9100 surveillance is the deepest audit in aerospace. Find the gap first.
A pre-audit walk for AS9100D-certified aerospace manufacturers. We find the gap between your documented AQMS and your floor before your aerospace registrar does.
AS9100D is the deepest audit standard in aerospace. The aerospace industry rebuilt the standard after a string of supply-chain failures that killed people. The registrars who write it up reflect that history. They are not casual auditors. The Reality Check exists because most aerospace shops we walk through have one or two of the AS9100D-specific clauses sitting unaddressed inside a generally healthy ISO 9001 backbone, and the registrar will find every one of them.
Quick answer
The AS9100 Reality Check is a pre-audit walk for aerospace manufacturers heading into a Stage 2, surveillance, or recertification audit under AS9100D. Brass & Bench partners come onsite for four to six days, walk the AQMS against the floor reality with attention to the AS9100D-specific clauses that ISO 9001 does not cover, and deliver a bound gap-matrix report. Pricing is $35,000 to $60,000 all-inclusive depending on facility size, prime customer mix, and special-process scope. Most clients use this engagement four to twelve weeks ahead of their registrar audit, often after a hard surveillance write-up the prior cycle.
By Lorrie Lynn · Founding Partner. Operations, Manufacturing & International Contracts · Updated May 14, 2026The gap
What the registrar finds that your internal audit missed.
AS9100D-specific gaps cluster in six places.
Counterfeit-parts prevention (Clause 8.1.4). AS9100D requires a documented, implemented program to detect and prevent counterfeit and suspect-unapproved parts entering your supply chain. Most shops have a policy. Few have implemented sampling, traceability validation, and supplier-specific risk screening at the level the standard requires. Registrars audit this clause heavily after the GIDEP and the SAE QPL traceability cases of the last decade.
Foreign Object Debris (FOD) program (Clause 8.5.4). Aerospace FOD programs need to be specific to the operation, with sweep schedules, employee training records, and FOD-find logs maintained per shift. The generic FOD policy you copied from the prime contractor's flowdown is not sufficient. Registrars want to see the FOD program operating as a closed-loop with measurable performance.
Configuration management (Clause 8.1.2). Engineering-change control, baseline management, change-impact analysis. AS9100D requires configuration management beyond what ISO 9001 implies. Most aerospace shops have ECN procedures but lack the configuration-baseline traceability the standard expects, particularly for products in multi-year programs with overlapping baselines in flight.
Special-process control (Clause 8.5.1.2). Heat treatment, plating, NDT, welding, brazing, chemical processing, and similar. Special processes require qualified personnel, qualified procedures, and Nadcap-certified suppliers where applicable. Common gap: the supplier list shows a Nadcap-certified vendor, but the actual purchase orders the past twelve months show some volume routed to a non-certified backup during capacity shortfalls. Registrar finds it in the PO trail.
Product-safety responsibility (Clause 8.1.3). AS9100D introduced explicit product-safety responsibility language. Most operations have not authored a product-safety policy that maps the responsibility chain end-to-end. The standard wants to see who owns product safety at the design, production, and post-delivery phases. Common gap: post-delivery monitoring is missing or unowned.
Risk-based thinking applied to operational risk (Clause 6.1, 8.1). ISO 9001 risk-and-opportunity at the QMS level is one thing. AS9100D wants operational risk tracked at the product-and-process level, with measurable mitigation. The aerospace registrar reads the risk register against the actual non-conformance and customer-complaint trend.
The path
How we close the gap before the audit.
The Reality Check structures around the six AS9100D-specific gap clusters and the underlying ISO 9001 backbone.
Day zero. Remote intake. Your AQMS manual, the procedure set, the work instruction library, the last two registrar reports, twelve months of corrective actions, twelve months of customer scorecards (a primary AS9100D input), the FAI / first-article inspection program documentation, your supplier-management procedure and Nadcap certificates for any special processes, your FOD program, your counterfeit-parts program, your configuration-management procedure, and the product-safety policy if one exists.
Days one and two. The AS9100D-specific walk. Lorrie Lynn and one supporting partner walk the counterfeit-parts and FOD programs end-to-end on the floor. Supplier traceability gets validated through actual PO and incoming-inspection records. The FOD sweep schedule is verified by a shift-by-shift records walk. Special processes are validated by checking actual purchase orders against the Nadcap certificate scope.
Day three. Configuration management and product safety. The team traces a single product family through engineering-change control, configuration baselines, and customer-facing product-safety responsibility. Where the customer is a Tier 1 prime (Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, Spirit, GE Aviation, Northrop, Bell), the engagement includes a customer-specific flowdown audit against your QMS response.
Day four. The ISO 9001 backbone walk. A targeted walk on the underlying ISO 9001 process map, corrective-action effectiveness, management review, and risk-and-opportunity register. Shorter than the standalone ISO 9001 Reality Check because the AS9100D-specific walk catches most of the systemic gaps already.
Day five. Findings build. The bound gap-matrix report is built in real time. Every finding tied to a specific AS9100D clause and a remediation sequenced to the audit calendar.
Day six (if onsite). Optional for multi-shift, multi-site, or particularly complex programs.
The bound report ships within forty-eight hours of onsite wrap. We have direct experience walking the AS9100D requirements at firearms, defense, aerospace components, and the adjacent industries where the prime-contractor flowdown brings the standard into shops that are not aerospace-native. The framing is the same. The clause coverage is the same. The clause depth is what changes.
AS9100D audit coming up? Let's find the gap first.
The first call is a thirty-minute conversation. We tell you whether the Conformance Reality Check is the right product, or whether you need something different.