AS9120B · Stockist distributors

Most aerospace QMS software was written for a machine shop.

You don't cut metal. You buy parts, prove they're what they claim to be, keep the paperwork unbroken, and ship them on. That's a different quality system with a different centre of gravity — and AS9120B exists precisely because ISO 9001 and AS9100D don't describe it well.

Your process map, not a manufacturer's

Purchasing is a process here. In a machine shop it usually isn't.

JBird builds the interaction map from your own processes, so a distributor's map looks like a distributor. A useful rule when you draw yours: if nobody is primarily employed to execute an activity, it probably isn't a separate process — the reasoning behind that rule, and how many processes a QMS should end up with, is worked through separately. A machine shop with no purchasing manager folds purchasing into operations. Buying is your whole business, so it gets its own box, its own owner and its own metrics.

A JBird interaction-of-processes diagram for a stockist distributor: one Management process above four core processes — customer order review, purchasing and supplier control, receiving, inspection and traceability, and packaging and shipping — in a single left-to-right flow, with one Support process below and customer requirements and satisfaction bookending the diagram.A JBird interaction-of-processes diagram for a stockist distributor: one Management process above four core processes — customer order review, purchasing and supplier control, receiving, inspection and traceability, and packaging and shipping — in a single left-to-right flow, with one Support process below and customer requirements and satisfaction bookending the diagram.

A distributor's interaction of processes, drawn from its own data. Click to enlarge.

Video · 0:41A narrated walkthrough of this screen: A distributor's interaction of processes.
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This is a stockist distributor's interaction of processes, drawn from its own data. Four core processes, shaped for a stockist: customer order review, purchasing and supplier control, receiving, inspection and traceability, and packaging and shipping. Receiving verifies product against the purchase order, checks certificates and manufacturer test reports, looks for suspect or counterfeit indicators, and records lot and batch traceability. Management sits above, support below, and the customer bookends the diagram. Drawn from its own data. JBird QMS.

Where AS9120B puts its weight

The clauses that actually get sampled in your audit.

A distributor's audit spends its time in a narrow band: can you prove what this part is, where it came from, and that the paperwork travelled with it unbroken. JBird is built around that band.

8.5.2

Traceability to the manufacturer's lot

Receiving records that carry the lot or batch through to what you shipped, so a customer's question about a part number four years old has an answer.

8.1.4 · built

Counterfeit and unapproved parts

The clause AS9120B is arguably built around. Nonconformances raised at receiving carry root cause and effectiveness verification like any other finding — and the prevention side is on the supplier register, where a distributor needs it: an authorized/original-source flag per provider, obsolescence monitoring, and a counterfeit-awareness training role.

Suspected unapproved parts (8.1.5) travel the same nonconformance path, but have no dedicated control of their own yet.

8.4 · 8.4.1.1

Supplier approval and scope

An approved-source register with approval status and scope, plus on-time and quality performance measured per supplier rather than remembered.

8.5.4

Shelf-life and preservation

Expiry, storage condition and quantity on hand, with expired and expiring-soon both surfaced on the dashboard rather than found during a stock check.

8.2.3 · 8.2.4

Order review and changes

A review record per order — part number, revision, condition, certification required — and a change log with an acknowledgment step when it moves.

8.6

Release, with the certificates attached

Evidence of conformity verified on receipt and passed down the chain, because in your business the certificate travelling with the part is the product.

Scope

You shouldn't have to explain away the clauses you don't perform.

Clause 4.3 lets you determine that a requirement doesn't apply, with a documented justification — and for most distributors design and development is the real one. JBird holds that assessment as a live record rather than a paragraph buried in a manual — and it writes it into your scope statement for you. What a distributor can exclude, and how to justify it →

JBird's clause 8 applicability assessment for a stockist distributor: every requirement listed with the standards it belongs to. Design and development, 8.3.1 to 8.3.6, is marked Not Applicable under one written justification that covers services as well as product; every other clause 8 requirement, including control of equipment, tools and software programs, traceability and preservation, stays applicable.JBird's clause 8 applicability assessment for a stockist distributor: every requirement listed with the standards it belongs to. Design and development, 8.3.1 to 8.3.6, is marked Not Applicable under one written justification that covers services as well as product; every other clause 8 requirement, including control of equipment, tools and software programs, traceability and preservation, stays applicable.

Every clause 8 requirement and its status. Design and development is the one exclusion, and its justification sits beside it. Click to enlarge.

Video · 0:59A narrated walkthrough of this screen: The clause 8 applicability assessment.
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This is JBird's clause 8 applicability assessment for a stockist distributor: every requirement, with the standards it belongs to. Design and development, clause 8.3, is the one exclusion, and its written justification sits beside it. The distributor purchases and resells parts built to the original manufacturer's design, and does not create or modify product designs. The rest of clause 8.3 is marked not applicable under that one justification, which covers services as well as product. Every other requirement stays applicable, including external providers, and the control of production and service provision. Post-delivery activities, release of products and services, and control of nonconforming outputs all stay in scope. One exclusion, one written justification. JBird QMS.

Worth saying plainly

Design and development (8.3) is built now, and for a stockist distributor it is also, usually, excluded from scope entirely — JBird holds that exclusion against its justification and writes it into your scope statement, so you are not re-explaining it at every audit.

The clauses a distributor cannot exclude are built too: customer and external-provider property (8.5.3) — which for a distributor usually means consigned stock and returns — customer communication (8.2.1 and 8.2.2), control of changes to how the service is provided (8.5.6), the communications register (7.4), and analysis and evaluation (9.1.3). What is still open is named clause by clause on the product page rather than summarised here, so the list can't drift out of date in two places at once. The product page draws the line exactly →

Getting started

Tick AS9120B and you're not staring at an empty system.

A template pack sets your standards scope and writes the five documents every quality system needs — scope statement, internal audit, management review, NCR/CAPA and document control — each scoped to AS9120B rather than a generic pack with the manufacturing clauses left in. Run it again later and it fills only what's still missing; it will never overwrite something you've edited.

JBird's Load Template Pack panel, with a table of the five starter documents each marked will be created.JBird's Load Template Pack panel, with a table of the five starter documents each marked will be created.

Click to enlarge.

Video · 0:53A narrated walkthrough of this screen: Loading a template pack.
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This is JBird's Load Template Pack panel. One click sets the standards that apply to your organization, and seeds its starter documents. The pack covers the QMS scope statement, the internal audit, management review, NCR and CAPA, document control, and purchasing procedures, each pre-written for the standards you check. You choose which standards apply. ISO 9001 always does. If none of the aerospace standards apply to you, ISO 9001 alone is a complete answer. Each starter document shows its status. And it is safe to run again: it only fills in documents that do not exist yet, and never touches one you have already created or edited. Start from pre-written documents. JBird QMS.

Pilot program

We're looking for a handful of shops to build this with.

46 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.

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