In the same way that most quality standards developed from military standards, those applicable to the aerospace industry have gone through the same evolution, only much more recently. Undoubtedly because of custom from the military and government agencies, the aerospace industry worked to military quality standards for a long time. It was not until the early nineties that the US Department of Defence cancelled the military standards MIL-Q-9858 and MIL-l-45208A, in favour of general quality standard. Similarly, the UK Ministry of Defence reconsidered the suppliers quality DEF Stan 05/20 series and Nato quality standards (AQAPs). This coincided with the emergence of BS 5750 and ISO 9000 as the widely accepted commercial standard. Aerospace was crying out for a simple, yet viable quality standard and ISO 9000 satisfied this requirements because it wasn't restricted to a single product, line or application. Adopting ISO 9000 seemed an appropriate, cost effective solution.

The large aerospace companies began to demand that their suppliers implement quality programmes based on ISO 9000. However, each company or government agency placed different demands on the suppliers who soon found that ISO 9000 could not sufficiently address all of these unique requirements. To overcome this problem, aerospace companies began to customers the quality standard to their individual needs, imposing differing requirements on the suppliers, which caused fragmentation with the industry and standard to push costs even than before. To address this issue, several of the big companies got together, including Boeing McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and GE Aircraft Engines, to form a committee to develop an interpretation of ISO 9000 generic to the whole aerospace industry. Published two years later, AS 9000 was the resulting agreed standard that addressed aerospace requirements, its major and minor manufacturing customers, services suppliers and regulatory bodies.
In the UK, the Society of British Aerospace Companies issued Technical Specification a157 (TS 157) in 1992. This document again gave aerospace companies specific interpretation of the ISO 9000 standard and has become widely used within the UK industry.

The Ministry of Defence and the Civil Aviation Authority, as well as major UK companies including British Aerospace, GEC Marconi, Smiths industries and Racal have all endorsed the document as a rational way forward for quality control systems.

In the United States, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) is closely affiliated with the aerospace industry and controls the release of most aerospace standards. In October 1996 SAE issued a draft of a new standard for the aerospace industry. The draft standard was reviewed by experts and government agencies directly involved with the industry, such as NASA, the Department of Defence and the FAA. The process resulted in the release of the completed AS 9000 by SAE in May 1997.

As 9000, or the Aerospace Basic Quality System Standard, received widespread, enthusiastic support from the industry, and Boeing has taken steps to implement an AS 9000 quality system Working with NQA, USA Inc., the leading North American aerospace registrar (certification body), Boeing now Aircraft Engines and Allied Signal have also begun to demands AS 9000 and the FAA's Aircraft Certification Division, whilst not directly endorsing the standard, recognise AS 9000 as meeting their expectations for a manufacturing quality control system .

The development and release of AS 9000 represents a significant attempt to unify the requirements of NASA, the Department of Defence and the FAA, whilst satisfying the needs of the rest of the aerospace industry.

The AS 9000 and TS 157 documents retain the same layout as the ISO 9000 standard which they are closely based upon. In fact, all 20 elements of ISO 9000 are identically represented. The difference covers industry specific interpretation for each element which are identified as supplementary requirements. Theses additions represent the requirements expected by the FAA, the US Department of Defence, NASA, the CAA, the UK Ministry of Defence, and are accepted aerospace approaches to certain quality practices and aerospace interpretations of the general requirements of ISO 9000.

If the efforts to implement AS 9000 and TS 157 across the industry continues and remains successful, it will satisfy the requirements of organisations such as NASA, the FAA the US Department of Defence, the CAA and the UK Ministry of Defence, as well as the major manufacturing companies, and will even filter down the smaller suppliers. Industry accepted standards will have significant benefits for all those involved, particularly cost saving benefits. If the unique requirements that were imposed by individual companies are eliminated in favour of one standard, it should results in cost saving across the board.

This will be particularly welcome amongst the smaller companies who supply the bigger manufactures and are therefore vital to the industry.

Having done so much work to develop and publish a standard specific to the industry, the major aerospace companies have no demanded third party registration as yet, unlike the way GM and Chrysler did with QS-9000 in the automotive industry. Also, neither the Register Accreditation Board (RAB) nor any other accreditation body has become involved in the development and approval of AS 9000. Although this is not an unusual situation with a new standard, it does leave a significant void. It means that AS 9000 presently acts as more of a guidance standard, rather than one to which companies gain certification.

At present, aerospace companies are registered and achieve certification against the ISO 9000 standard relevant to their business activity, with auditors using AS 9000 in the United States or TS 157 in the UK as guidance for the assessment. The simplicity and versatility of ISO 9000 allows this, and assessment which into account either AS 9000 or 157 ensure that the company involved will satisfy the requirements specific to the aerospace industry. UK companies in the aerospace sector who achieve registration to ISO 9000 using TS 157 as guidance can use the Aerospace Sector Certification Scheme (ASCS) logo.

Many people within the industry would like to see more involvement of accreditation bodies and certification bodies to provide third party auditing but without it resulting in excessive regulation. Indeed, with several bigger companies, such as Boeing and GE Aircraft Engines, imposing AS 9000 on their suppliers it is bound to become a requirement that filters down the supply chain, and that in itself may create a need for party registration if the standard is to be effective.

Accreditation bodies and certification bodies need to familiarise themselves with all factors of AS 9000 and/or TS 157 if they are to take an active role but, at the moment, many are waiting to see how things develop before committing themselves and training assessors. Some have taken a pre-active approach and incorporated the standard into their methodology.