BS EN 9116:2015

This standard BS EN 9116:2015 Aerospace series. Notice of Change (NOC) Requirements is classified in these ICS categories:

• 49.020 Aircraft and space vehicles in general

1.1 General

The aviation, space, and defence industries rely on the development and manufacture of complex products comprised of multiple systems, subsystems, and components each designed by individual designers (design activities) at various levels within the supply chain. Each design activity controls various aspects of the configuration and specifications related to the product. When a change to design information is requested or required, the change has to be evaluated against the impacts to the higher-level system.

Proposed changes to design information that the design activity identifies to be minor and have no effect on their product requirements or specifications have the potential to be concurrently implemented and approved, where authorized to do so. Changes that affect customer mandated requirements or specifications shall be approved prior to implementation. In many cases, the design activity is not the design approver or authority; ultimate approval may be several layers above the design activity. The typical flow of design requirements to the supplier, from the design authority, and the change notification flow is presented in Figure 1.

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Submitting NOC data either electronically or conventionally on paper is subject to the terms and conditions of the customer’s contract. This also includes, where applicable, data access under the regulations of export control.

The process of exchanging, coordinating, and approving NOC data varies with the multiple relationships and agreements among all organizations concerned. The information provided by this European Standard forms the architecture for submitting and managing data that allows for concise and accurate communication using various methods. One objective of this European Standard is to provide the definition of a data set that can be integrated into any form of communication (e.g., electronic data interchange, submission of conventional paper forms).

If all or part of this European Standard is invoked in the contract, design activities and design holders (i.e., the organization responsible for the design) that have responsibility for change management of products used on other higher-level designs shall use the information and processes defined in this European Standard, and in accordance with the contract, for submitting change notifications to customers.

1.2 Application

This European Standard defines the common NOC requirements for aviation, space, and defence organizations. Included are the requirements that an internal/external supplier or subcontractor shall use when submitting a NOC to the customer for either change authorization or notification. A NOC informs the customer of physical or functional (including software) changes to an established baseline configuration. Retention of the NOC establishes a means of configuration control and captures the evolution of the part. This requirement is of utmost importance in commercial/civil aviation products where changes to type certificated products are mandated by regulations. However, these same concepts are also required to some degree in defence and space applications per contractual requirements.

This European Standard is not applicable to products that are manufactured by a supplier to their customer's designs and processing requirements (also known as build-to-print). Change requests to this type of product shall be formally submitted to the customer and approved via the customer’s change request process. Additionally, this European Standard is not applicable to commercial parts (off-the-shelf items not specifically designed for aviation, space, or defence products) for which changes in product definition is not affected or known, but change to commercial parts that are known (i.e., change in definition from one commercial part number to a different commercial part number) shall be processed in accordance with this European Standard.

When this European Standard is applied to an organization that distributes product, then this European Standard shall be a requirement from the distribution organization to the organization from which the product is procured. The distribution organization may act as a conduit for the NOC or the design activity (supplier) may work directly with the design authority (customer). The distributor should be compliant with the 9120 standard, as defined by customer requirements.

Application or implementation of this European Standard in any form, either expressed or implied, is not allowed for product which has escaped the supplier’s quality system.