First-Article Inspection Under AS9102 Is a Recurring Revenue Opportunity Most Solution Providers Undervalue

First-Article Inspection — FAI — is the structured process by which a manufacturer demonstrates that a production process is capable of consistently producing a part that meets design requirements. Under AS9102 (the ANSI/SAE standard governing FAI in aerospace), the documentation requirements are extensive, the data must be traceable to the specific design revision, and the records must be maintained for the life of the production program.

For solution providers in the QIF and MBE space, FAI is a recurring revenue opportunity that operates on a predictable cycle — every new part number, every design change, every new supplier qualification triggers an FAI requirement. And yet most solution providers treat FAI as a one-time project rather than a recurring service. That is a significant missed revenue opportunity.

AS9102 defines three levels of FAI: complete, partial, and delta. A complete FAI is required for every new part number entering production. A partial FAI is required when a design change affects certain characteristics but not others. A delta FAI is required when a manufacturing process change affects previously approved characteristics.

The documentation requirements for a complete FAI include: a design documentation review (the design authority’s drawing or MBD dataset, revision level, and change history), a material and process certification review, a dimensional inspection results report for every characteristic, a functional test results report where applicable, and an appearance approval report.

Under an MBD workflow, the dimensional inspection results are generated by the CMM against the PMI from the 3D model. QIF provides the structured format that connects the measurement result to the specific GD&T characteristic in the model — giving each measurement result a traceable link to the design authority’s specification.

“Every engineering change at an aerospace supplier triggers a delta FAI requirement. That is a recurring services revenue stream measured in weeks, not months.”

A QIF-based FAI workflow operates as follows: the CMM software generates a QIF measurement results file for each characteristic measured. The FAI management software imports the QIF file, maps each measurement result to the corresponding characteristic in the design documentation, applies the tolerance and conformance status, and generates the AS9102-compliant FAI package automatically.

The manual version of this workflow — where the quality engineer reads the measurement results from the CMM software, re-enters them into an Excel template, and manually matches each result to the design characteristic — takes 8 to 40 hours per part number depending on complexity. The QIF-automated version takes less than an hour.

The savings are the business case. The recurring nature of FAI requirements is the revenue model.

A one-time project that implements the QIF-based FAI workflow: CMM software configuration for QIF output, FAI management software deployment and integration, AS9102 documentation template configuration, and team training. This is the initial engagement that funds the relationship

A recurring service engagement — either retainer or time-and-materials — where your team provides support for each FAI event: reviewing the QIF output for completeness, validating the measurement plan against the design revision, and finalizing the AS9102 documentation package. At one to three hours per FAI event, this is a low-overhead recurring revenue stream.

AS9102 records must be maintained for the life of the production program — which in aerospace can be 20 to 40 years. Managing the QIF data archive, maintaining version control as design revisions occur, and ensuring the archive is accessible for customer and registrar audits is a long-term managed service that most manufacturers do not have internal capability to handle.

The ideal prospect for an FAI services practice is a manufacturer with 20 to 100 unique active part numbers in production, at least one prime contractor customer who conducts annual supplier quality audits, and a quality team of two to five people who currently manage FAI documentation manually. At this size, the manual FAI burden is significant enough to justify automation but the quality team is not large enough to self-implement a QIF workflow.

Discovery question that opens this conversation: “How many FAI packages does your quality team prepare per quarter, and how long does each one take to complete?” The answer will tell you whether the automation case is strong enough to proceed.

KEY TAKEAWAY  AS9102 FAI requirements create a predictable, recurring demand for QIF-based inspection documentation that every aerospace supplier must meet. A packaged FAI service offering — implementation, execution support, and archive management — converts a project sale into a long-term recurring revenue stream.

2BMobile →  2BMobile builds service packaging and go-to-market strategies for solution providers offering FAI and quality inspection services. Talk to us about structuring your recurring revenue model.