AS9102 (the Aerospace First Article Inspection Requirement) requires that every design characteristic be verified and that the measurement and test equipment used to verify it be identified and traceable. On the First Article Inspection Report (FAIR), each characteristic is recorded with its designed value, its actual measured result, and the inspection method or equipment used — and that equipment must be calibrated and traceable to national standards per AS9100 Rev D Clause 7.1.5. A first article inspection performed with uncalibrated or non-traceable equipment is invalid, regardless of how good the measured numbers look, because there is no defensible basis for trusting them.
A FAIR comprises three forms. Form 1 is part-number accountability — the part, its drawing, and the FAI scope. Form 2 covers materials, special processes, and functional testing, with the supporting certifications. Form 3 is characteristic accountability, and it is where measurement equipment lives: for each numbered characteristic it records the design requirement, the actual measured result, and the inspection tool or gage used. Recording the specific gage identification on Form 3 is what links every reported measurement to a calibrated, traceable instrument — and what lets an auditor confirm that instrument was in calibration on the inspection date.
The equipment used for a first article inspection must be within its calibration interval on the date of the inspection, traceable to national or international standards, and adequate for the tolerance being verified — which in practice means an appropriate test uncertainty ratio so the measurement can actually resolve conformity. If equipment used in an FAI is later found out of calibration, the inspection results it produced are called into question and the affected characteristics may require re-inspection, exactly as an out-of-tolerance finding triggers an impact assessment under Clause 7.1.5.
AS9102 requires a full or partial FAI when conditions change: a design change affecting fit, form, or function; a change in manufacturing source, process, or material; a change of location; a lapse in production (commonly two years); or a corrective action following a nonconformity. A partial FAI re-verifies only the affected characteristics — and the measurement equipment used for those characteristics must again be calibrated and traceable on the date the partial FAI is performed. Treating the re-accomplishment trigger and the equipment-calibration trigger as one combined check avoids invalid partial FAIs.
Auditors and customer source inspectors repeatedly find the same equipment issues on FAIRs: the gage used for a characteristic is not recorded on Form 3; the recorded gage was out of calibration on the FAI date; the equipment had an inadequate test uncertainty ratio for a tight tolerance, so the measurement could not credibly resolve conformity; or the equipment was not traceable to national standards. Each undermines the validity of the FAI and is straightforward to prevent by linking gage identity to live calibration status.
CalibrationOS ties each gage's calibration status, certificate, and traceability chain to its identifier, so the gage recorded against a characteristic on Form 3 can be shown to have been in calibration and traceable on the inspection date. Because the platform can report which equipment was out of calibration over any date range, it directly supports FAI validity reviews and the re-inspection decisions that follow a late out-of-tolerance discovery — closing the loop between the calibration program and the AS9102 record.
AS9102 requires that the measurement and test equipment used to verify each characteristic be identified on the FAIR and be calibrated and traceable to national standards per AS9100 Clause 7.1.5. An FAI performed with uncalibrated or non-traceable equipment is invalid.
Yes. Equipment used for a first article inspection must be within its calibration interval on the inspection date, traceable to national or international standards, and adequate for the tolerance being verified. Out-of-calibration equipment invalidates the affected results.
On Form 3, the characteristic accountability form. For each characteristic, Form 3 records the design requirement, the actual measured result, and the inspection tool or gage used — linking every measurement to a specific, calibrated instrument.
AS9102 requires a full or partial FAI after a design change affecting fit/form/function, a change in source, process, or material, a change of location, a lapse in production (commonly two years), or a corrective action for a nonconformity. The equipment used for re-verified characteristics must again be calibrated and traceable.
The inspection results produced by that equipment are called into question. The affected characteristics typically require re-inspection, and the situation is handled like an out-of-tolerance finding under AS9100 Clause 7.1.5 — evaluating the validity of the previously reported results.
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