Smith’s Machine LLC has been awarded ISO 9001:2008 and AS9100 B certifications.

AS9100 is a standardized quality management system for the aerospace industry, released in October of 1999 by the Society of Automotive Engineers and the European Association of Aerospace Industries.

It replacs the earlier AS9000 standard and fully incorporates the current version of ISO9000, plus additional requirements relating to quality and safety.

Major aerospace manufacturers and suppliers required compliance and/or registration to AS9100 in order to do business with them.

The firm’s registrar is the highly regarded www.tuvamerica.com.

Smiths Machine Vice President Tim Smith says the certification is important to the development of the firm.

“We are excited to have added this prestigious certification to our list of other qualifications,” Mr. Smith said.

According to the Society of Aerospace Engineers, prior to the adoption of an aerospace specific quality standard, various corporations typically used ISO 9000 and their own complementary quality documentation/requirements, such as Boeing’s D1-9000 or the automotive Q standard. This created a patchwork of competing requirements that were difficult to enforce and/or comply with.

The major American aerospace manufacturers combined their efforts to create a single, unified quality standard, resulting in AS9000. Upon the release of AS9000, companies such as Boeing discontinued use of their previous quality supplements in preference to compliance to AS9000.

During the rewrite of ISO 9000 for the year 2000 release, the AS group worked closely with the ISO organization. As the year 2000 revision of ISO 9000 incorporated major organizational and philosophical changes, AS9000 underwent a rewrite as well. It was released as AS9100 to the international aerospace industry at the same time as the new version of ISO 9000.