Distribution · AS9120
Traceability you can demonstrate, from source to delivery.
Build practical controls for aerospace distribution: approved sources, lot identity, storage, split shipments, returns and the evidence that follows the product.
Start with a free 15-minute discussion. Scope and fees follow an assessment.
What usually goes wrong.
Screened out of OEM and Tier-1 supply chains
Buyers are increasingly filtering their approved distributor lists by AS9120B. Without it, you risk being screened out even before price ever enters the conversation.
Provenance you cannot reconstruct
The parts themselves are genuine, but the paperwork chain has gaps in it, and an auditor cannot follow it back to the manufacturer without your help.
No demonstrable prevention process
Approved-source control, receiving inspection, and suspect-part quarantine exist informally in people's heads, rather than as actual documented evidence.
Storage practices that undermine the stock
ESD, shelf life, and environmental control are managed by habit rather than by process. One finding here calls the entire inventory into question.
An AS9100 system bolted onto a distribution business
Someone has applied a manufacturing standard to a stockist business. The result is heavy where it does not really matter, and thin exactly where the real risk sits.
Retention without retrieval
Documents are kept, but finding the right certificate for a specific batch during an audit ends up taking hours instead of minutes.
What AS9120 is actually testing you on.
A distributor is not audited on workmanship, as such. Rather, it is audited on the integrity of the chain between the manufacturer and your customer.
An unbroken chain from the original manufacturer, or their authorised channel, right through to the part on your shelf - and the ability to reconstruct that chain on demand.
Certificates of conformity, test reports, and shipping records that stay matched to the material and can survive an audit even years later.
This is the centrepiece of Rev B: approved sources, receiving inspection, quarantine of suspect material, and a reporting route that is actually used in practice, not just on paper.
Electrostatic discharge (ESD) control, shelf-life management, storage conditions, and damage prevention - the physical half of what a customer is paying you for.
The point at which distributors most easily break traceability. The controls put in place here are the difference between adding real value and destroying provenance.
Being able to demonstrate that rejected or scrapped material simply cannot re-enter the supply chain.
Holding records for the required period is the easier half of this. Retrieving the correct one during an audit is what actually gets tested.
Three failure points that put distributor certification genuinely at risk.
Everything else in AS9120B is process discipline. These three are the areas where a single gap can end the relationship with an OEM account.
Approved-source purchasing, receiving inspection tuned to detect suspect parts, and a quarantine that actually holds the material, rather than being a shelf that someone forgets about. Chain-of-custody has to be reconstructable on demand - from the original manufacturer or an authorised channel through to the part in your customer's hands - rather than simply existing somewhere in a filing cabinet.
The moment a lot is split, kitted, or repackaged, the certificate of conformity has to travel with every resulting sub-lot, matched and traceable back to the original manufacturer's CoA. This is the single easiest place to accidentally sever traceability while still adding real value to the transaction - and it is the point auditors probe first.
Suspect and rejected material has to be physically incapable of re-entering the supply chain - segregated, clearly marked, and tracked through to final disposition - with a reporting route that actually gets used, not one that exists only in the manual. A quarantine area that is not physically separated from saleable stock is a finding waiting to happen.
Recurring findings keep recurring because the underlying structure produces them.
Four systems-led disciplines are used to find and fix that structure - with AI-assisted analysis where it genuinely improves speed and discipline: mapping audit evidence, spotting process gaps, and structuring corrective-action follow-up.
Systems Thinking
Understanding why your recurring findings keep recurring - and how to actually make them stop, by fixing the structure rather than blaming operators or tools.
System Dynamics Modelling
How delays, feedback, and incentives drive quality behaviour over time - and where one small change can move the whole system.
Critical Thinking
Separating the certificate from the actual capability. Testing every assumption that an auditor will test - before they do.
Design Thinking
Building the system around your people, culture, and behaviour, so that quality survives real production - not just audit day.
How to assess the evidence behind an advisory approach.
Every AS9120B consultant will tell you that your traceability is solid. Before you sign anything with anyone, ask them to reconstruct one lot, live, in front of you.
"Your paperwork is in order."
Ask them to pull one certificate of conformity for a specific split lot, live, on the call itself. If it takes more than a few minutes to locate it and match it back to the original manufacturer, that is the finding an auditor will write up against you.
"We'll set up counterfeit-part prevention."
Ask what, specifically, they mean. Approved-source purchasing, receiving inspection tuned to detect suspect parts, and a physically separated quarantine area are three separate controls - a consultant who can only name one of these has not actually built the system yet.
"Our AS9100 experience translates directly."
It does not, in practice. AS9100D audits workmanship, whereas AS9120B audits chain-of-custody integrity. A consultant who has only ever built manufacturing systems is applying the wrong standard to your business - ask which distribution audits they have actually supported.
"Splitting and repackaging won't be a problem."
This is the single easiest place to sever traceability while still adding real value to the transaction. Ask exactly how the CoA travels with every sub-lot - rather than finding out the hard way, during an actual OEM audit.
This is for you if…
Who you would actually be working with.
Former Country Quality Leader, Boeing India (AS9100D scope: 9 sites, 5,000+ engineers). IAQG/Probitas-authenticated AS9100D auditor.
Boeing · Schneider Electric · ABB · safety-critical field engineering
Former Country Quality Leader · AS9100D Management Representative
AS9100D certification scope - one of the largest Boeing operations outside the continental US
First Boeing AS9120B site in India, established for the Indian Navy P-8I Comprehensive Maintenance Contract (CMC). Scope later expanded to CMCs for the Indian Air Force AH-64E and CH-47F, and the Indian Army AH-64E.
Authenticated AS9100D aerospace auditor
Aerospace new product introduction - advanced product quality planning and production part approval
Certified CMMI Practitioner (ISACA) on the current V3.0 model
Trainer in Systems Thinking, System Dynamics Modelling, Critical Thinking and Design Thinking
Start small, prove the value, then scale up.
There is no year-long contract to sign before we both actually know your real gaps.
15-Min Readiness Diagnostic
Free · where you currently stand, what is blocking approval, and an honest read on fit.
Flight Plan Workshop
Half or full-day, on-site · a gap snapshot and a dated route map · fixed fee, quoted before booking.
Certification Advisory Retainer
Alongside you through readiness, implementation, and audit preparation · scoped only after the workshop.
One advisory, three different aerospace quality standards.
Manufacturing, maintenance, and distribution are each audited against different standards, but by the same OEM supplier-quality teams. Please pick the one that actually matches what you do.
Who accepts the part you sell in India, and what they check.
A distributor's customer in India is usually an approved organisation - a CAR-145 shop, a DGAQA-inspected production line, a DPSU - whose own approval depends on buying from traceable, approved sources. Their gatekeepers become yours.
| Authority | What it covers | Who needs it | Where AS91XX fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| DGCA - CAR-145, CAR-M and CAR-147 | Civil maintenance. CAR-145 is the approval of maintenance organisations under Rule 133B of the Aircraft Rules 1937 (accountable manager, quality manager, certifying staff, facilities, procedures and release). CAR-M covers continuing airworthiness management; CAR-147 covers maintenance training organisations. | MRO providers, component repair shops, CAMO functions and training organisations serving Indian operators and lessors. | AS9110C and CAR-145 test the same things - competence and authorisation, human factors, tooling and calibration control, part traceability and release - but CAR-145 is the licence to work. Build one system that satisfies both and keep it running between audits. |
| DGAQA (Directorate General of Aeronautical Quality Assurance, Department of Defence Production, MoD) | Government quality assurance and final acceptance of military aircraft, UAVs, aero-engines, airborne systems, avionics, armaments and consumables across design, production, repair, overhaul and life extension. DGAQA also approves firms and their quality management systems, and carries out capacity assessment and registration of firms and test laboratories. | Any supplier whose product is accepted by a Government QA representative: direct MoD suppliers, DPSU sub-tiers, repair and overhaul shops on military stores, test laboratories. | DGAQA registration is a capacity and QMS assessment followed by product acceptance on the floor. An AS9100D or AS9110C system gives the evidence structure; what DGAQA tests is whether the inspection, traceability and non-conformance records hold up at acceptance. |
| DPSU and DRDO vendor registration (HAL, BEL, BDL, DRDO laboratories) | Each Defence Public Sector Undertaking and DRDO laboratory runs its own vendor registration and approval, with capacity assessment, QMS review and, for airborne items, the relevant DGAQA or CEMILAC status. | Firms seeking sub-tier work on Indian military platforms and programmes. | AS9100D is commonly listed as an entry criterion, and the registration audit goes further than the certificate: capacity, special processes, calibration, sub-tier control and records are checked on site. |
| NABL accreditation (ISO/IEC 17025) for test laboratories | Accreditation of testing and calibration laboratories by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories. DGAQA separately approves test laboratories for military stores. | In-house and third-party laboratories supporting material testing, NDT, calibration and environmental tests. | Aerospace customers expect calibration and test results to be traceable to an accredited laboratory. AS9100D clause 7.1.5 is where that traceability is audited. |
Questions we are asked first.
We don't manufacture anything. Do we still need a quality standard?
If you buy, hold, and resell aerospace parts, your customers are relying on you for traceability and authenticity, not for workmanship. AS9120B is the standard written for exactly that role. Distributors without it are increasingly getting screened out of OEM and Tier-1 supply chains, regardless of how good their stock actually is.
Is AS9120 different from AS9100?
Yes, it is. AS9100D is written for organisations that design or manufacture. AS9120B is written for organisations that resell parts without altering their properties - stockists, distributors, and traders. Applying AS9100D to a distribution business ends up producing a system full of clauses that do not apply, and gaps exactly where the real risk sits.
What does an auditor actually check in a distributor?
Overwhelmingly, it comes down to this: can you prove where each part came from, and that it is exactly what the paperwork says it is. That means traceability back to the manufacturer or their authorised channel, intact certificates of conformity, controlled storage and handling, and demonstrable counterfeit-part prevention. Most findings tend to cluster in those four areas.
How long does AS9120B readiness take?
The route map gives you actual dates after the workshop, rather than a guess before it. As a rough anchor: a manufacturer moving from ISO 9001 to AS9100D typically plans for 6–9 months. A distribution system has fewer processes in scope, so it is usually shorter - but the timeline depends far more on how much traceability evidence you already hold than on the size of your business.
Do you issue the AS9120 certificate?
No - and this is deliberate. Suriyavaan is an independent advisory led by an auditor-practitioner, not a certification body. Building your system and then also auditing it would be a conflict of interest. We build the system that passes your certification body's audit, and most clients simply keep the certification body they already use.
What about counterfeit-part standards like AS5553 and AS6081?
AS9120B carries the core counterfeit-prevention requirements, and for many distributors that is sufficient on its own. Depending on your product mix - electronic components especially - customers may additionally reference AS5553 or AS6081. Which of those actually apply to you is something we scope out in the diagnostic, rather than simply assume.
Ready to find out what is actually blocking your approval?
Book a free 15-minute diagnostic. You will get an honest read on your readiness, the likely blockers, and the most practical next step for you - whether or not we end up working together.
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