APQP and PPAP Awareness (AS9145)

Aerospace customers increasingly require new parts, new suppliers and major changes to go through advanced product quality planning (APQP) and production part approval (PPAP) under AS9145. The aim is simple: find problems while they are still cheap to fix, and prove the product and the process are ready before production begins. This course explains how the method works and what it asks of you.

You will learn why APQP exists and where it came from, how AS9145 relates to AS9100D clauses 8.1 and 8.3, and how AS9102 first article inspection, AS9103 key characteristics and the AS13100 reference manuals for PFMEA and control plans fit around it. You will walk through the five phases, planning, product design and development, process design and development, product and process validation, and production use and ongoing improvement, with the key deliverables of each: design FMEA, process flow, process FMEA, control plan, measurement systems analysis and capability studies. You will then learn the 11 PPAP elements, submission levels, approval status and the PPAP approval form.

The final module is about your part: what a cross-functional team does, what you commit to when you sign feasibility, the chain from PFMEA to control plan to work instruction, and the common ways APQP fails, worked through as scenarios.

The course is written for engineers, quality staff, buyers, programme managers, supervisors and operators at aerospace suppliers who are asked for APQP or PPAP. It closes with a 10-question examination drawn from a bank of 20. On passing you receive a PlanetISO Certificate of Completion with lifetime access to the course content. The certificate does not expire.