AS9100 vs AS9102 for 3D Scanning: Building a Defensible Aerospace First Article Inspection Workflow

A first article inspection report for a machined bracket comes back from the customer's supplier quality engineer with one line circled: characteristic 14, a position callout on the mounting datum, has an actual measured value on Form 3 but no record of which measurement device produced it or what coordinate frame it was measured in. The part itself is fine. The report is not, and it gets rejected on a technicality that has nothing to do with whether the bracket meets the drawing.

That rejection almost always traces back to the same root confusion: treating AS9100 and AS9102 as interchangeable names for "aerospace quality paperwork." They are not the same document, they do not answer the same question, and knowing which one governs which part of the report is what keeps a scan-and-probe based FAI workflow from generating exactly the kind of gap that just got that bracket bounced.
 

AS9100 and AS9102 Answer Two Different Questions

AS9100, currently at Revision D, is the certifiable quality management system standard for aerospace, space, and defense organizations. An organization gets audited and certified to AS9100 as a whole system, covering everything from design control to purchasing to nonconformance handling. Clause 8.5.1.3 of AS9100D requires production process verification. First article inspection commonly covers the part of that requirement most relevant here, evaluating a representative item from the first production run along with its documentation and tooling, though the broader clause can call for additional verification activities depending on process risk.

AS9102 is a different kind of document entirely. Currently at Revision C, revised in June 2023, it is a first article inspection requirements and reporting standard, not a certifiable management system standard. An organization cannot be "AS9102 certified." What AS9102 provides is the checklist, forms, and terminology for actually documenting a first article inspection: three forms—Part Number Accountability, Product Accountability, and Characteristic Accountability—and a defined format for tying a measured result back to a specific drawing callout.

Put another way: AS9100 says an organization must verify its process can produce conforming parts. AS9102 says here is the paperwork format that proves it did, when a customer contract calls for one. Many aerospace primes contractually require AS9102-format FAIRs from their suppliers even when a full first article isn't strictly mandated by AS9100 itself, which is why the two standards get conflated so often on the shop floor.
 

What an AS9102 Report Actually Requires

Form 1, Part Number Accountability, establishes identity and traceability. The part number, revision, and drawing or digital product definition (DPD) number recorded here have to match the design record exactly, including any dash number, and a revision mismatch is one of the most common reasons a FAIR gets bounced before anyone even looks at the measurement data. The FAIR number itself is simply the unique identifier assigned to that inspection report.

Form 2, Product Accountability, documents materials, special processes, and functional tests, including material certifications, heat and lot numbers, and sub-tier supplier documentation for anything outsourced, such as forging, casting, or heat treat.

Form 3, Characteristic Accountability, is where the measurement data lives. Every dimension, tolerance, GD&T callout, and note on the drawing gets a uniquely numbered balloon, and every balloon number has a corresponding row on Form 3 recording the requirement and the actual measured result against it. Rev C formally recognizes verification against the authoritative digital product definition (DPD), including applicable model-based requirements, rather than only a 2D drawing. That recognition is what opens the door to qualifying scan-based inspection data as the source for a Form 3 result. An organization's own inspection plan typically documents which instrument produced each result, since that traceability matters for an audit even where the AS9102 form itself does not dedicate a column to it.

None of the three forms specifies which instrument has to produce the data on Form 3. That choice belongs to the organization's inspection plan, and it is exactly where 3D scanning and contact probing come in.
 

Where 3D Scanning Belongs on the Report

Cast fillets, sculpted transitions, and freeform profile callouts do not reduce to a handful of discrete points worth checking. Every square millimeter of the surface is a candidate for the spot where the part drifted from CAD, and a full-surface scan is what turns that unknown into a documented deviation map instead of a guess.

SCANOLOGY's SIMSCAN-S Gen2 is built for the size of hardware this scenario usually involves: brackets, clevises, fittings, and small machined housings. According to current product specifications, it delivers 0.015 mm accuracy, 0.020 mm resolution, and volumetric accuracy of 0.015 mm plus 0.03 mm per meter, with testing referenced to ISO 10360-13, VDI/VDE 2634 Part 3, and JJF 1951. For larger structures and housings, KSCAN-E covers up to 1440 by 1000 mm per frame at 8.29 million measurements per second, which keeps a full-surface pass practical on a part that would take a scanner built for small parts many repositions to cover.

On Form 3, a profile or surface-position characteristic gets its actual measured value straight from the deviation map at that balloon's location, and the scanner along with its calibration record gets documented in the inspection plan as the method behind it. That is a legitimate, standards-recognized way to fill the row, as long as the scan is aligned to the part's actual datum scheme instead of an arbitrary best-fit orientation, which the next section covers.
 

Where Contact Probing Belongs on the Report

A scanner needs a direct line of sight to a surface to measure it. A blind bore, a deeply recessed boss, or a datum feature machined behind a wall of material has no line of sight for a camera to work with, and no amount of scanner accuracy changes that. It's a physical limit of optical triangulation, not a setting to adjust.

Contact probing is what closes that gap on the same setup. SCANOLOGY's AccuArm is a portable CMM (PCMM), an articulated measuring arm that travels to the part rather than requiring the part to travel to a lab, distinct from a fixed CMM's stationary bridge or gantry frame. Its published performance characteristics associated with ISO 10360-12 for the 6-axis, 2 m, S-grade configuration list a SPAT of 0.016 mm, an EUni of 0.022 mm, and a PFORM of 0.015 mm, per current AccuArm specifications, and its joint rotation lets the probe tip reach into a bore or boss from an angle a fixed instrument's frame geometry might not allow without unclamping the part.

On Form 3, a datum feature, bore position, or bolt-circle characteristic can be reported from probe measurements rather than from scanned surface data. That is the row type a fixed CMM has filled for decades in a controlled lab, and AccuArm fills the same row type on the shop floor, on the same part, in the same setup as the scan.
 

The Datum Reference Frame Is What Makes the Report Defensible

This is the step that caused the rejection in the opening scenario. It's also the piece that separates a FAIR that survives a customer's review from one that gets sent back. GD&T tolerances on a drawing are defined relative to a specific datum reference frame, the set of datum features the designer chose as the part's coordinate origin. A characteristic result only means what the drawing says it means if it was measured in that same reference frame.

Aligning scan or probe data by eye, or by a generic best-fit that minimizes overall surface deviation without regard to the drawing's actual datum scheme, produces numbers that look plausible but do not trace back to the tolerance as specified. A position callout referenced to datum A, B, C has to be evaluated in a coordinate system built from those three datums, not from whichever orientation happened to minimize scatter across the whole part. That mismatch is exactly the kind of gap a careful reviewer catches, because the actual measured value on Form 3 no longer corresponds to what the drawing's GD&T scheme defines.

Building the alignment to the drawing's datum scheme rather than to a convenient best-fit is a deliberate step in the inspection plan, not something a scanner or probe does automatically by default.
 

From Raw Data to a Characteristic Result Row

A pass or fail mark on Form 3 is a conclusion. The record behind that mark is what holds up under audit: which instrument produced the value, what coordinate frame it was measured in, and whether the underlying data still exists to check later if a customer asks.

That means the raw scan mesh and the raw probed coordinates need to be retained and exportable, not reduced to a screenshot of a color map with no data behind it. A rendered image answers "did this pass," but only the underlying dataset answers "measured how, in what frame, by what instrument" if that question comes up during an audit or a customer's source inspection.

DefinSight, SCANOLOGY's own metrology software platform, stores the scan mesh, the probed points, and the datum alignment in one file, cutting out the manual step of reconciling two separate exports before the report goes out. Because AccuArm and SCANOLOGY's scanners share DefinSight, a probed datum result and a scanned profile result on the same FAIR can trace back to the same aligned dataset, which keeps Form 3's characteristic-by-characteristic traceability intact when the report mixes measurement methods.
 

One Package, Two Measurement Methods

Many aerospace parts need both scan-based and probe-based measurements on the same FAIR. A machined housing with a cast exterior and a datum bore scheme is the typical case: scan the full exterior with SIMSCAN-S Gen2 or KSCAN-E for the profile and surface characteristics, probe the datums and bores with AccuArm on the same setup, and let DefinSight carry both into one aligned file that feeds Form 3 row by row.

Before the full report is finalized, a supplier quality engineer can review a deviation map or run a quick distance check using SCANOLOGY's free ScanViewer, without needing the full DefinSight metrology license.
 

Frequently Asked Questions

Is AS9102 a certification like AS9100?
No. AS9100 is a certifiable quality management system standard that an organization is audited against. AS9102 is a first article inspection requirements and reporting standard that defines the forms and format for documenting the inspection, not a certifiable management system standard. An organization cannot become "AS9102 certified," but a customer contract can require FAIRs to follow the AS9102 format.

Does AS9100 require every part to get a full AS9102-style FAIR?
AS9100D's clause 8.5.1.3 requires production process verification, and evaluating a representative first-production-run item is the piece of that requirement commonly covered by first article inspection, but the clause does not mandate the specific AS9102 form set. Whether a full AS9102-format FAIR is required usually comes down to the customer contract, which is why aerospace suppliers frequently follow AS9102 even outside a strict AS9100 mandate to meet that.

Can 3D scan data satisfy an AS9102 Form 3 characteristic result?
Yes, for profile, surface-position, and freeform characteristics, provided the scan is aligned to the part's drawing-defined datum reference frame and the resulting measured value can be traced back to the scanner's calibration record in the inspection plan. AS9102 Rev C explicitly recognizes verification against the authoritative digital product definition, which supports scan-based results feeding Form 3.

What alignment method should scan-based FAI results use?
Whatever alignment the drawing's GD&T scheme calls for, built from the actual datum features specified, not a generic best-fit that minimizes overall deviation without regard to those datums. A characteristic toleranced relative to datums A, B, and C has to be evaluated in a coordinate frame built from those datums for the result to mean what the drawing says it means.

Does a datum feature always need a contact probe instead of a scan?
Not always. A datum feature with clear line of sight and enough exposed surface area can sometimes be captured reliably from scan data. The dividing line is line of sight and feature accessibility: a datum blocked from the scanner's cameras, a deep bore, or an internal boss may require tactile probing or another suitable measurement method, while an accessible, open datum surface can often be handled by the scan itself.