Certification scheme · AS9104/1A:2022
AS9100, AS9110 and AS9120 say what your quality system has to do. AS9104/1A says how a certification body certifies you against them: how many audit days you get, how your sites are grouped, how much can be done remotely, and what goes into the IAQG's OASIS database. You are never audited to it. But it decides the shape of every audit you have.
You'll see it written several ways — AS9104/1A, AS9104-1:2022, EN 9104-001, 9104-001. Same document. This page covers what its 2022 revision changed for a certified shop, in plain English, from registrars' and accreditation bodies' published guidance.
The short version
The transition is over. The 2022 edition replaced the 2012 one, and certificates have been re-issued against it. If you're reading this because of a panicked email about a deadline, it has passed.
What stuck is administrative, and it's yours: performance data to your registrar at least 90 days before each audit, a risk category that moves your audit days by about 10% either way, a cap on remote auditing, and single-site or multi-site as the only structures.
When it happened
SAE published AS9104/1A on 7 January 2022, replacing the 2012 edition. The IAQG released the transition rules, Supplemental Rule 004, in February 2022. After that, published accounts of the timeline differ, mostly because they describe different steps:
| Source | What they say |
|---|---|
| ANAB | Certification bodies to conform to the new requirements no later than January 2023 |
| Consultancy guidance | Certification bodies to implement by 1 July 2023; end of the transition for everyone else 1 January 2024 |
| PRI Registrar | Transition reviews built into regular audits beginning October 2023 |
What they agree on is the end state: by 2024, aerospace audits were run under the 2022 rules and certificates were being re-issued to cite them, at the next audit rather than all at once. On a surveillance audit the certificate's expiry date did not move.
What changed for you
The 2022 scheme introduced the Organization Certification Analysis Process (OCAP). Before each audit, your certification body looks at data about you — size, structure, complexity, your internal audit program, your performance and outcomes — and assigns a risk category. Registrars describe the deadline for that data as at least 90 days before the audit starts. PRI, for one, states that late data puts you in the high-risk category and is written up as a nonconformance. That is a deadline most shops only discover by missing it.
PRI describes the effect as roughly 10% more audit time for a high-risk organization, no change for medium, and 10% less for low, and reports the IAQG's estimate that about 85% of organizations land in the middle. Ten percent sounds small. On a two-day audit it is a couple of hours, billed.
The duration table, driven by employee count, was revised, and the new scheme allows reductions at a site for processes that genuinely aren't performed there — design and development is the obvious one. It also requires a minimum amount of auditor time off-site. If your audit-day quote changed after 2023 and nobody explained why, this is the likely reason.
Registrars describe up to 50% of an audit as able to be done remotely, and fully remote aerospace audits as no longer permitted — PRI dates that from 1 October 2023. Opening, closing and daily meetings can be held remotely. Plan on an auditor on your floor.
To align with the International Accreditation Forum's rules, the scheme dropped the campus and complex (several-site) structures. Every certification is now single-site or multi-site. This mostly hit larger organizations, whose audit days went up, but if you run a second building down the road it's worth knowing which one you are.
Revised at the same time
AS9101, the audit methodology behind the process effectiveness report and the conformity matrix, was revised in 2022 alongside AS9104/1A and transitioned on the same schedule. We've explained the PEAR and the Form 2 conformity marks separately.
Why a small shop should care
Most of AS9104/1A is your registrar's problem. The OCAP data is not. It asks for things your quality system should already produce — how your internal audit program is running, how your processes are performing, what your customers are saying about delivery and quality — and it asks for them three months before anyone arrives. A shop that assembles that data in the week before the audit will miss the date. A shop whose KPIs, audit schedule and corrective actions are kept current can send it any day of the year.
And if you supply Boeing, D6-82479 expects you to share the data behind your OCAP category with Boeing on request, and to hand Boeing's own findings to your registrar. The two documents are designed to meet in the middle.
What's next
The 9100 series itself is being revised and renamed IA9100 — see our 2026 changes guide. As of 24 September 2026 we have not seen a published replacement for AS9104/1A:2022. If one is announced, this page gets updated, and it carries its date for that reason.
How JBird does it
In JBird, the internal audit program, the process KPIs with their monitoring plans, and corrective actions live in one system and stay current as work happens, so the performance picture a registrar asks for 90 days out is already there. That is advice first and a feature second: the same holds in a well-kept spreadsheet.
Common questions
AS9104/1A, also written AS9104-1:2022 or 9104-001, is the standard that defines the IAQG's certification scheme for aviation, space and defense quality management systems. It tells certification bodies how to certify organizations to AS9100, AS9110 and AS9120: how long audits last, how sites are structured, how much can be done remotely, and what is recorded in OASIS. Organizations are audited to AS9100, not to AS9104/1A, but it shapes every audit.
No. The 2022 edition replaced the 2012 edition, and the transition ran through 2023. Sources give slightly different dates for the steps, but by the start of 2024 certification bodies were expected to be auditing to the 2022 rules.
OCAP is the Organization Certification Analysis Process. Your certification body uses data about your organization, including its performance and internal audit program, to place you in a risk category, and the category adjusts your audit duration. PRI describes the adjustment as 10 percent more time for high risk, no change for medium and 10 percent less for low.
Registrars describe the requirement as at least 90 days before the audit starts. PRI, for example, says data not received by then places the organization in the high-risk category and is raised as a nonconformance. Check your own registrar's instructions.
Partly. Under the 2022 scheme, registrars describe up to 50 percent of an audit as able to be performed remotely, and fully remote aerospace audits as no longer permitted.
Sources and honesty
Checked on 24 September 2026: SAE's AS9104/1A listing; the IAQG's transition rules announcement; ANAB's posts on the AS9104 revisions and changes to the certification process; PRI Registrar's client guidance; and Quality Magazine's July 2023 article “The Aerospace Quality Management System Rulebook”.
We have described AS9104/1A from these published accounts rather than quoting the standard, which is sold by SAE. Where they give different dates, we've shown the difference. Your registrar's own instructions are what you're held to. JBird is an independent product and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or accredited by the IAQG, SAE, ISO or any certification body.
Pilot program
45 modules are already built and working. Pilot organizations get the system at no cost during development, direct input on what gets built next — there is a Report a Problem button on every screen, and it goes to a register we work through — and a migration path when the IA9100 revision lands.