How to Get AS9100 Certified: A Step-by-Step Path for Small Machine Shops

Certify because target customers require it, not speculatively. Audit fees are nearly flat regardless of shop size, so a 6-person shop pays roughly what a 20-person shop does. The payoff is access: aerospace primes and tier-1s commonly require AS9100 to put you on an approved supplier list, so certification unlocks RFQs you currently can't bid.

If you're supplying certified shops rather than primes, you may not need the certificate — just the habits. Many customers will accept a supplier with solid traceability, C of Cs, calibrated gages, and FAI capability. That's a good intermediate step anyway.

Get a copy of the standard and walk your shop against it clause by clause. The common small-shop gaps: no document control (drawings and procedures with no revision discipline), informal calibration, no supplier evaluation, no nonconformance and corrective action process, no internal audit or management review, and material traceability that lives in a filing cabinet.

Then write the QMS. Keep it short and true to how you actually work — auditors audit against what you say you do, so a 200-page manual bought off the shelf creates findings. You'll need a quality policy and objectives, scope, the procedures and records the standard requires, and evidence each process runs. Quality managers describe doing this 'in my free time — it took two years'; templates and consultants compress it. Consultants commonly charge around $8,000–10,000 per engagement, and state-funded MEP centers exist specifically to help small manufacturers and are worth calling first.

Registrars want evidence the QMS operates, typically a few months of records: travelers with traceability from job to heat lot to mill cert to supplier PO, inspection records tied to calibrated gages, FAIs on new parts, NCRs with dispositions and closures, corrective actions, supplier performance, and training records.

This is where shops either sail or struggle. If records are a by-product of running jobs, a few months of operation produces everything. If they depend on someone filling in binders after the fact, they'll be incomplete exactly where the auditor samples.

Before the registrar arrives, complete at least one full internal audit cycle covering every clause and process, close the findings, and hold a documented management review. Pick the registrar early — get quotes from several accredited certification bodies, since fees and scheduling vary.

Certification is two stages. Stage 1 is a readiness review: documentation, scope, and whether you're prepared. Stage 2 is the full audit, sampling jobs and records across the shop. Findings are classified, and major nonconformities must be corrected before the certificate is issued. After that you're on a three-year cycle with annual surveillance audits, then recertification.

The lowest-cost route: free or low-cost templates, an MEP center or a short consultant engagement for the gap analysis, a spreadsheet calibration log, and disciplined paper travelers with heat lots recorded. It works — micro-shops hold certifications — but the record-keeping burden falls on the owner's evenings.

Software doesn't get you certified; the registrar audits your quality system, not your tools. What it can do is make the evidence automatic. Traveler is being built with an 'ISO-ready' posture (document control, quality logs, gage calibration, C of C) and a 'Certified' posture (AS9102 FAI generation, NCR workflow, one-click audit binder), both planned within the $109/month flat price. See our AS9100 certification cost guide for the full budget breakdown.