First article inspection process flowchart (FAI to FAIR approval)
First article inspection process flowchart: assess the trigger, decide full or delta FAI, balloon the drawing, run the article on production tooling, inspect every characteristic, then submit the FAIR for approval.
What the first article inspection process flowchart (fai to fair approval) process is
A first article inspection is not really an inspection of a part. It is an inspection of a process, using one part as the evidence, and that distinction decides whether the exercise is worth anything. The article has to come off the production tooling, be made by production people running the production routing, and be measured against every characteristic on the released drawing. The temptation, when the programme is late and the tooling is not quite finished, is to let the toolroom make a beautiful one by hand. It will pass. It proves nothing. The quieter failure is a first article inspection report, the FAIR, completed from the drawing rather than from the measurements, so the record states what the part was meant to be rather than what it is. Then there are the reports never run at all: the delta after a tooling change or a line moved to another site, and the part that has sat dormant long enough for the two-year trigger to pass unnoticed. All three failures leave a file that looks complete.
This chart covers one article, once, at the point where a part or the process that makes it is new or has changed. Incoming inspection is the other shape of check entirely: a sample drawn from a routine delivery of a part you already buy, verified against the purchase order and released to stores, and it lives at /templates/incoming-inspection-process. First-off, patrol and final checks against a control plan are the manufacturing quality inspection process at /templates/quality-inspection-process. The change that triggered the FAI is decided elsewhere: raising, assessing and approving it is the engineering change request process at /templates/engineering-change-request-process, whose chart carries one step called "Build and inspect first article": this page is that step opened out. Getting a whole new product into production, with manufacturability reviews, tooling, pilot builds and ramp-up, is the new product introduction process at /templates/new-product-introduction-process; the design work behind it is /templates/product-development-process; approving and scoring the firm that makes the part is /templates/supplier-evaluation-process. In automotive the equivalent submission is PPAP, which wraps an FAI-like dimensional report inside a much larger package of process flow, PFMEA, control plan, measurement systems analysis and capability studies.
Three decisions most written procedures leave to judgement are drawn here as branches. "FAI required for this trigger?" is answered before any work starts and has three answers rather than two: a full report, a partial or delta report scoped by "Scope the delta to affected features", and a recorded decision that none is needed: a legitimate outcome that still has to be written down. "Article representative of production?" sits between making the part and measuring it, and its No branch goes backwards to the tooling and routing rather than forwards, because an article that was not made under production conditions cannot be rescued by inspecting it more carefully. And "Nonconformance route?" has four exits rather than the single rework path most procedures imply: correct and re-inspect, re-run the article, ask the customer for a concession, or refer the drawing to engineering change when the part cannot be made as drawn. A refused concession comes back to that same four-way choice rather than assuming the part can be corrected. The chart then closes its own loop: records are retained, and "Re-triggered by change or a gap?" sends the part back to the trigger decision when the design, the process, the tooling, the location or two years of silence say it should.
What this flowchart covers
In this template
- Five swimlanes (Engineering, Quality engineer, Production, Inspection and metrology, and Customer) across five phases: Trigger and planning, Article production, Inspection and test, FAIR and submission, and Release and records.
- A three-way trigger gate, "FAI required for this trigger?", offering a full FAI, a partial report through "Scope the delta to affected features", and a "No FAI required, decision recorded" ending for changes that do not warrant one.
- Preparation and production: "Balloon and number every characteristic" in engineering, then "Release the production tooling and routing" and "Produce the article on the production line", gated by "Article representative of production?" whose No branch returns to the tooling rather than moving on.
- Verification in the inspection lane: "Inspect every ballooned characteristic", "Collect material and test reports", and a "Special processes used?" branch that routes through "Verify the source against the approved list" before the conformance call.
- A four-way "Nonconformance route?": correct and re-inspect, re-run the article, a "Concession granted?" decision taken in the customer lane, or the "Referred to the engineering change process" ending when the part cannot be made as drawn.
- Submission and closure: "Complete FAIR forms 1, 2 and 3", "Submit the FAIR to the customer", a three-way "Customer FAI decision?" covering approval, approval with comment and rejection, then release to serial production, "Retain the FAI records and evidence" and a re-trigger loop back to the trigger decision.
When to use this template
- You are writing an AS9102 or customer-mandated FAI procedure and need one picture of who balloons the drawing, who measures, who signs and who submits.
- A customer has returned a FAIR for reasons that were procedural rather than dimensional, and you need the review, submission and re-submission route drawn rather than improvised.
- You have moved a part to a new machine, a new site or a new supplier and nobody can say whether that calls for a full report or a delta against the last one.
- Your first articles are being made by the toolroom because production tooling is late, and you want the production-representative test to be a visible gate instead of an argument.
- You are training inspectors or a new quality engineer and want ballooning, the three forms and the four nonconformance routes taught from a single diagram.
How it works
Rename the lanes to your organisation
Replace Engineering, Quality engineer, Production, Inspection and metrology, and Customer with the roles you actually have. In a small shop the quality engineer and the inspector are one person, so merge those lanes rather than drawing a hand-off that never happens. Be explicit about who the customer lane is: an external customer, a prime contractor whose portal you submit through, or an internal programme accepting the part. If a special process supplier holds part of the evidence, give them a lane of their own.
Write your trigger list and the delta rule
Turn "FAI required for this trigger?" into a written list before anyone has to interpret it. Cover a new part, a new source or supplier, a design change, a change to the process, tooling or numerical control program, a change of manufacturing location, corrective action left over from a previous report, and a lapse of two years or more since the last delivery. Then define what a partial report covers, because that is where organisations differ most: name the rule for deciding which characteristics a given change could have affected, and require the earlier report to be cited as the baseline.
Fix how the drawing gets ballooned
Decide who balloons, in what tool, and how numbers are allocated so that two people produce the same list. Every dimension, note, specification callout, finish, material requirement and model-based annotation gets a number, including the ones buried in general notes. Store the ballooned drawing at the exact revision used, as a record in its own right, because a report whose balloon numbers no longer match the drawing revision cannot be checked by anyone later, and that is what a customer auditor will ask to see.
Define what production-representative means
"Article representative of production?" is only a gate if you say what it tests. Write down whether the tooling must be hard tooling or whether a bridge tool is acceptable, whether the operator has to be a trained production operator, whether the numerical control program must be the released one, and whether the material has to come from a production lot. Where you allow a concession on any of these, say what it costs: usually a second report once the real conditions exist.
Agree the submission package and the response route
Decide what "Submit the FAIR to the customer" actually sends: the three forms, the ballooned drawing, material and special process certificates, test reports and any concession approval, in whatever format the customer's portal expects. Agree a response time, and make sure everyone knows what approval with comment means in your contract — usually that production may be released while the comments are closed and evidenced before the next delivery, not that the comments can be ignored.
Walk it through, then publish a version
Sit down with the quality engineer, an inspector, a production supervisor and somebody who has had a report rejected by this customer, and walk the chart step by step. Ask where the real route differs: who chases the special process certificate, what happens when the customer says nothing for six weeks, who decides a concession is worth asking for. Correct the chart to what is really done, then publish that revision and keep the earlier ones, so anyone opening it can tell which version they are reading.
Frequently asked questions
What are the steps in a first article inspection process?
Identify the trigger and decide whether it needs a full report, a partial or delta report, or none at all. Balloon the released drawing so that every dimension, note and specification callout carries a unique number. Release the production tooling and routing, produce the article on the production line, and confirm it is representative of production before measuring anything. Inspect every ballooned characteristic and record the actual values, collect material and functional test reports, and verify any special process against an approved source. Route nonconformances to correction, a re-run, a concession request or an engineering change. Complete forms 1, 2 and 3, submit the report to the customer, and act on approval, approval with comment or rejection. Release the part to serial production, retain the records, and re-run the whole cycle when a change or a two-year gap triggers it again.
When is a first article inspection required?
Whenever the part, or the way it is made, is new or has changed. A part being made for the first time. A new manufacturing source or supplier. A change to the design, whether that is a drawing revision, a model change or a specification. A change to the manufacturing process, the tooling or the numerical control program. A change of manufacturing location, including moving a machine between buildings on the same site. Corrective action carried over from a previous first article inspection. And a lapse of two years or more since the last delivery of that part, on the reasoning that people, settings and suppliers drift while a part sits dormant — the trigger that catches most organisations out, because nothing happens to prompt it. Not every trigger needs a full report: where a change can only have affected some characteristics, a partial or delta report covers those and cites the earlier one as the baseline. What matters is that a decision is taken and recorded, including the decision that no report is required.
What is the difference between first article inspection and incoming inspection?
They answer different questions. Incoming inspection asks whether this delivery, of a part you already buy, is good enough to use, so it takes a sample from the consignment, checks certificates against the purchase order and either releases the material to stores or quarantines it; that process is drawn at /templates/incoming-inspection-process. A first article inspection asks whether the process that made the part is capable of making it correctly at all, so it takes one article and measures every characteristic on the drawing, once, when the part or the process is new or has changed. Incoming inspection repeats on every delivery and gets lighter as a supplier earns trust. A first article inspection happens rarely, goes deeper than any routine check, and produces a report the customer approves before serial deliveries begin. Shop-floor checks against a control plan are different again and belong to /templates/quality-inspection-process.
What are AS9102 forms 1, 2 and 3?
They are the three parts of a first article inspection report, and each answers a separate question. Form 1 is part number accountability: which part, at which revision, against which drawing, and which sub-assemblies are included or reported separately. Form 2 is product accountability: the materials, the special processes such as heat treatment, plating, welding or non-destructive testing, and the functional tests, each with the certificate reference and the source that performed it. Form 3 is characteristic accountability: one line for every balloon number, giving the requirement, the actual measured result and the instrument or method used, with any nonconformance and its disposition shown. Most rejected packages fail on form 3, usually because a characteristic is missing, because a result reads pass rather than a number, or because the balloon numbers no longer match the drawing revision that was inspected.
Is a first article inspection the same as PPAP?
No, though they exist for the same reason. PPAP is the automotive production part approval process, and a first article inspection is roughly the aerospace equivalent, but PPAP is a larger package: alongside a dimensional results sheet it typically requires the process flow diagram, the process FMEA, the control plan, a measurement systems analysis, initial process capability studies, material and performance test results, a significant production run of parts and a part submission warrant, all at a submission level the customer sets. AS9102 concentrates on one article and on proving that every drawing characteristic has been accounted for and measured, with the manufacturing process evidence carried in form 2. If you supply both industries, keep one procedure with two submission packages rather than two processes, because the underlying work of ballooning, measuring and recording is the same.