AS9102 Partial FAI Re-accomplishment: When You Need One and What Has to Be in the Binder

The full First Article Inspection is the part of AS9102 that quality teams understand. New part number, build the binder once, sign Form 1, ship it. The piece that gets argued in supplier reviews, on internal audits, and in Stage 2 surveillance more than any other is the partial. A drawing revision lands, a CNC program gets re-posted, an outsourced heat-treat house changes hands, and the question on the table is whether a partial FAI is required, what its scope is, and what an aerospace SQE expects to see in the binder when they open it.

This is the AS9102 Clause 4 conversation. Get it right and the original FAI stays defensible through the life of the part. Get it wrong and you ship a partial that the customer rejects, or you ship without one and an auditor reopens the program. This guide covers what partial FAI re-accomplishment is under Rev C, the four triggers and where the judgment lives, how the impact analysis becomes the actual deliverable, and what changes on Form 1, Form 2, and Form 3 when the scope shrinks.

What Re-accomplishment Actually Means

A first article inspection is a one-time event for a given configuration. It proves the production process, on the production tooling, in the production location, against a specific drawing revision, produces a conforming part. The moment any of those variables changes, the original FAI no longer covers the new configuration. Re-accomplishment is how AS9102 handles that.

There are two re-accomplishment paths. A full re-accomplishment rebuilds the entire FAI from scratch: Form 1, Form 2, every characteristic on Form 3, the ballooned print, every certificate, every measurement. A partial re-accomplishment is the same three-form structure with content limited to what changed. Form 3 lists only the changed characteristics. Form 2 lists only the changed materials, processes, or catalog items. Form 1 is still fully completed because it is the cover sheet that carries the accountability and the signature, and Rev C locks the FAI record when Form 1 is signed. The partial does not replace the original. It supplements it, references it, and is filed alongside it.

The distinction matters because the partial is a budget conversation. A full FAI on a 200-characteristic aerospace housing takes a CMM operator the better part of a week. A partial that covers eight changed characteristics, three flag notes, and a new processor on Form 2 takes a day. AS9102 does not require a supplier to redo work that is unaffected by a change. It does require the supplier to prove which work is unaffected, and that proof is the impact analysis.

The Four Clause 4 Triggers

AS9102 Rev C, published by SAE and the IAQG on 2023-06-23, defines four triggers for an FAI in Clause 4. Three of them can land as partials. The fourth almost always pushes you to a full.

The clause that drives the most disagreement is the third one. The standard does not say "any process change requires a partial FAI." It says a change that can affect fit, form, function, or quality. The judgment about whether a change can have that effect is the supplier's responsibility, and that judgment has to be documented, defensible, and ready for an SQE to challenge.

We covered the underlying form mechanics and the Rev B to Rev C delta in AS9102 First Article Inspection: How Form 1, Form 2, and Form 3 Fit Together Under Rev C. This guide assumes that baseline and goes deep on the partial.

Engineering Change: The Clean Trigger

Engineering changes are the cleanest partial trigger because the design organization tells you what changed. The released change package, whether it is an ECN, ECO, EWO, or a customer drawing release, identifies the characteristics that moved. Your partial FAI then covers exactly the affected scope plus anything downstream of the change.

The downstream piece is where teams get sloppy. A diameter dimension that changed from 0.500 +/-0.005 to 0.502 +/-0.003 is one changed characteristic. The position tolerance on that hole, if it references the same datum and was not re-toleranced, may still be unchanged on the drawing but is now measured against a tighter target, so the position feature control frame becomes affected by the change even though its callout did not move. Surface finish on the cylindrical surface produced by the same boring pass is similarly affected. The partial Form 3 should carry the dimension that moved and every feature control frame and surface callout that the new dimension touches.

Material changes flow to Form 2. Process changes that the engineering change introduces, for example a new heat treatment specification or a new coating, also land on Form 2. The Form 1 entry stays the same except for the drawing revision letter, which now reflects the new release. The signature is fresh.

For a partial FAI driven by an engineering change, the accountability discipline from Characteristic Accountability in AS9102: How to Balloon a Drawing So Form 3 Maps One to One applies to the changed scope. Re-balloon the changed sheet, use the original balloon numbers where they are unchanged, and assign new numbers for any added characteristic. Append, do not renumber. The same numbering convention from the original FAI carries forward and the partial Form 3 references the same characteristic numbers the original Form 3 used.

Process or Location Change: Where Judgment Lives

The process or location trigger is where most of the disagreement happens and where most of the supplier audit findings get written. Examples that the standard treats as triggering events:

• A change in manufacturing source, including moving the part to a different cell, a different facility, or a different subcontractor.
• A change in tooling that affects how a feature is produced. A rebuilt fixture is usually a trigger. A worn cutting tool replaced by an identical part is not.
• A change in numerical control program. A reposted G-code file is a trigger. The supplier has to verify the new program produces the same characteristics at the same capability.
• A change in special process source. Moving anodize from one Nadcap house to another is a trigger on every characteristic the anodize affects.
• A change in inspection method that affects measurement uncertainty. Switching a critical diameter from a CMM to an open-setup mic is a trigger.

The boundary is the phrase "can affect fit, form, function, or quality." The supplier has to make that call and document it. The defensible documentation pattern is an impact analysis that lists every characteristic on the original FAI, marks each one as affected or unaffected by the change, and gives a one-sentence reason. That impact analysis is what the SQE asks for first when they open a partial. It is also the document an auditor scopes against to find characteristics that should have been on the partial Form 3 and were not.

A move from one CNC mill to a different mill of the same make and model in the same facility, running the same NC program, on the same fixture, with the same tool list, may legitimately produce a partial limited to a sample of characteristics across the part envelope to verify the new machine holds capability. A move of an outsourced heat treat from one Nadcap-accredited supplier to another, on the same specification, is a partial on every characteristic the heat treat affects, which on a titanium part can include hardness, dimensional growth after stress relief, and any feature finished after the heat treat. The pattern is not "list a few representative features." It is "list everything the change can touch and prove the change does not touch the rest."

The Two-Year Lapse

The lapse clause says two years, or shorter if the customer flows it down. The supplier holds the responsibility for tracking elapsed time since the last conforming production unit, not since the last shipment.

In practice, the two-year clock pushes you to a full FAI almost every time. The reason is that after two years of no production, the operator who ran the original FAI has often moved on, the tooling has been reclaimed for other parts, the inspection records on file have to be re-validated against the current measurement equipment calibration record, and the design record itself may have moved a revision. A partial only makes sense when the supplier can demonstrate, with documented evidence, that the entire process is unchanged, which is rare after a two-year gap. When in doubt on a lapse, do the full FAI. The cost is a week of CMM time. The cost of a customer rejection on a partial against a stale process is rework, escape investigation, and a corrective action that will follow you for years.

If the customer flows down a shorter lapse, for example one year, write it into your FAI procedure. The procedure should name the lapse window the customer has flowed down, the trigger event the supplier uses to start the clock, and the workflow for evaluating whether the lapse pushes to full or partial scope.

Form 1, Form 2, Form 3 on a Partial

The frontmatter of the partial mirrors the original. Form 1 is always fully completed: the part number, the drawing number and revision, the lot or batch tied to the production run that supports the partial, the part type, and the signature block. Under Rev C, Field 17 is Part Type and the signature is the FAI record lock, so signing Form 1 on a partial closes the partial as a discrete FAI record.

Form 2 carries only the materials, special processes, and standard catalog items that changed. If only the anodize processor changed, Form 2 has one row. If the engineering change introduced a new alloy, Form 2 has rows for the new material specification, the new heat or lot number, and the new certificate of conformance. Items that did not change are not re-listed. The partial Form 2 references the original Form 2 in the header so the SQE can find the unchanged scope.

Form 3 lists only the changed characteristics. The Characteristic Number column uses the same numbering the original Form 3 used, so a partial covering balloons 12, 47, and 48 lists those three rows by number. New characteristics introduced by the engineering change get appended numbers that continue the original sequence. The Requirement column shows the new tolerance, not the old one, because the partial is recording conformance to the current design record. The Results column carries fresh measurements taken on the production lot that supports the partial. The reconciliation step is the same: every changed characteristic gets a row, every row gets a measurement, the one-to-one mapping holds for the changed scope.

The ballooned print is the area that trips teams. If only one sheet of a three-sheet drawing changed, the partial includes a fresh ballooned copy of that one sheet, with the changed characteristics highlighted, and references the unchanged ballooning on the other two sheets in the impact analysis. If the design organization re-released the entire drawing at a new revision letter but only one sheet has substantive changes, the partial still benefits from re-ballooning the changed sheet so the SQE can see exactly which features got new attention.

The Impact Analysis Is the Deliverable

The single document that determines whether a partial FAI survives review is the impact analysis. The SQE who opens the binder is not reading the impact analysis to confirm the supplier did the work. They are reading it to find a characteristic the supplier marked as unaffected that the SQE can argue was affected. If they find one, the partial is incomplete and the binder gets bounced.

A defensible impact analysis carries every characteristic from the original FAI Form 3 by characteristic number, an affected or unaffected disposition, and a one-sentence reason that ties the disposition to the change. "Position of hole 3, balloon 27, unaffected, position datums and hole-producing operation unchanged by ECN 4128 which only revised the chamfer call on balloon 12" is a defensible row. "Unaffected per engineer review" is not. The bar is whether a reviewer, knowing only what the change package says, would agree with the disposition. If reasonable people could disagree, the characteristic goes on the partial.

For process or location changes, the impact analysis also covers every Form 2 row from the original. Material certifications carry forward when the material specification, heat or lot, and source are all unchanged. Special processes carry forward only when the processor, specification, and call-out are unchanged. Catalog items carry forward when the source and specification are unchanged.

We rolled the impact analysis pattern into the partial FAI workflow in our AS9100 internal audit checklist, where the FAI accountability question is one of the items an internal auditor should be able to evaluate inside a 30-minute review.

Customer Flow-Downs to Watch

AS9102 sets the floor. Customers routinely flow down stricter requirements. The flow-downs that bite suppliers on partials:

• Shorter lapse window. Major primes commonly flow down a one-year lapse instead of the AS9102 two-year default. Check the contract.
• Customer-defined trigger list. Some primes name specific changes that always require a partial, for example any NC program revision, any tooling rebuild, or any subcontractor change.
• Customer approval before scoping the partial. Some flow-downs require the supplier to submit the proposed partial scope, with the impact analysis, before the FAI is completed. The customer concurs on the scope or expands it.
• Customer-specific forms. Some primes require their own variant of Form 1, Form 2, and Form 3, with additional columns for source approval data, ITAR controls, or critical-item flags. The partial uses the customer form, not the IAQG annex.
• Customer-specific re-accomplishment for KCs and CIs. Key characteristics and critical items often get a tighter trigger list than ordinary features. A process change that does not require a partial on a standard characteristic may still require one on every KC.

Read the contract before scoping the partial. The PO and the quality clauses live above AS9102 in the precedence chain.

Where the Partial Connects to PPAP and Blueprint Intelligence

For suppliers running PPAP on the same part for an automotive customer, the partial FAI does not replace the PPAP dimensional results sheet, but the dimensional records produced for the partial can populate PPAP Element 9 for the changed characteristics. The reconciliation is the same: every changed characteristic gets a measurement on both records, and both records cite the same balloon number.

The drawing-side mechanics of the partial, finding the affected features, dispositioning them, and re-ballooning the changed sheet, are exactly the tasks that Blueprint Intelligence was built to compress. Automated feature extraction over a revised drawing surfaces every characteristic that changed between revisions, gives the impact analysis a defensible starting list, and removes the manual re-balloon error from the partial. Tying the changed balloons to a partial Form 3 carries that signal straight into the FAI record without retyping. For the underlying ballooning discipline that the partial inherits, see characteristic accountability under AS9102 and why surface finish belongs per balloon.

For a teammate who has never built a partial FAI, the working short answer is: the partial FAI is the smaller version of the same three-form structure, scoped to what changed, anchored to the original FAI by characteristic number, and stands or falls on the quality of the impact analysis. The form mechanics are the same form mechanics you would use on a full FAI, covered in What is PPAP for the cross-industry submission view and in the AS9102 form guide above for the aerospace view.

Bottom Line

Partial FAI re-accomplishment is the part of AS9102 where suppliers either prove they understand the standard or get caught running it from memory. The standard gives four triggers, two clear and one ambiguous. The judgment on the ambiguous trigger lives in the impact analysis. The form mechanics shrink to scope, the accountability mapping holds, the original FAI carries forward, and the signature on Form 1 closes the partial as a discrete record. Get the impact analysis right and the partial is a one-day exercise. Get it wrong and you ship a binder that the SQE rejects on first read.

If your team has run partial FAIs on a spreadsheet for years, the place to start is not a new template. It is an honest review of the last three partials you shipped. Pull the impact analysis from each, walk the dispositions, and ask whether a Stage 2 auditor reading the document cold would land on the same answers. The partial FAI is the audit canary. It tells the auditor whether your quality system actually tracks what changed and why.