Europe Formally Recognizes AC 00-56 and ASA-100

April 30, 2019 by 1 Comment

The European Union has formally recognized FAA AC 00-56 and ASA-100 as acceptable methods for supplier evaluation.

Some of you will remember that ASA was working with the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to establish protocols for aircraft parts suppliers.  EASA examined various proposals for regulating distributors, and ultimately concluded that the FAA’s Voluntary Industry Distributor Accreditation Program was an appropriate model upon which to rely.  EASA sought comments on the proposal and ultimately issued a recommendation to the European Commission.

The first part of that recommendation was acted upon in August when the European Commission issued a new rule that required repair stations (EASA 145 organization) to

“establish procedures for the acceptance of components, standard parts and materials for installation to ensure that components, standard parts and materials are in satisfactory condition and meet the applicable requirements”  EASA 145.A.42(b)(i).

The second part of that recommendation has been implemented in ED Decision 2019/009/R.  This Decision provided guidance on what it means to establish the above procedures.  First, the guidance clarifies that “[f]or the acceptance of components, standard parts and materials from suppliers, the [] procedures should include supplier evaluation procedures.” AMC1 145.A.42(b)(i) Components, section (b).   At first glance, this appears to impose a huge new obligation on repair stations to evaluate suppliers.  But EASA has offered an easy way to meet this evaluation obligation, by relying on the existing infrastructure for supplier evaluation.

GM3 145.A.42(b)(i) Components explains how to evaluate suppliers.  It explains that a suppliers’ quality system should have certain elements.  It also permits reliance on suppliers known (through external auditing) to meet four standards that are considered acceptable: AC 00-56, ASA-100, AS/EN9120 and EASO 2012.  This means that a 145 organization can rely on a supplier that was audited to such a standard, and does not have to perform its own evaluation.  The basis for endorsing each of these standards was an analysis of each standard by EASA that found that each was in compliance with the list of elements published in this GM.

I was part of the EASA rulemaking team that performed the evaluations, so I know that EASA put a lot of effort into validating that the Voluntary Industry Distributor Accreditation Program was acceptable for use in Europe.  The entire industry of accredited distributors should be proud of this recognition, because it is the result of 25 years of commitment to safety and quality.

This is great news for the community of accredited distributors.  This verifies that aircraft parts installers who rely on AC 00-56 as an element of their supplier selection process are doing the right thing.  It also confirms that the global norms for supplier evaluation are working to enhance safety.

 

Look for tomorrow’s article on how broad is the European definition of “supplier.”

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EASA Drops Rulemaking!

September 4, 2014 by Leave a comment

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is new and improved!

On 1 September 2014, EASA announced a new organizational structure that should “prepar[e] the Agency for the challenges of the coming years.”

The most salient change is that there is no longer a Rulemaking Directorate.  I spoke with a number of EASA executives while this change was being planned and implemented and they felt that the separate Rulemaking Directorate was necessary while EASA was developing the large bodies of rules that would regulate the European aviation industry, but that such a directorate was no longer necessary now that the regulatory structure has been developed.

Many of you have heard me say that “regulators need to regulate.”  It is what they do.  And if you have regulators whose job is to make new regulations, then they will make new regulations whether new regulations are needed or not.  EASA has recognized this, and has removed the temptation to make rules for the sake of rules with this change.

The remaining directorates will still be able to develop rules as they are needed, but they will primarily focus their resources on regulating the industry under the rules that currently exist, and limit rulemaking activities to situations that require such activities.

EASA’s press release announced that “The new organisation will enable the Agency to engage more pragmatically with the aviation industry. A strategy and safety management directorate has been created in order to strengthen EASA’s overall strategy and to promote a data driven and performance-based approach to managing safety. All regulatory functions have been integrated across the different aviation domains and more homogeneity has been introduced to better enable the Agency to speak with one voice.”

Setting aside the rhetoric, EASA’s reorganization reflects a strategic recognition of what EASA wants to do to support safety as well as a pragmatic recognition that rulemaking should be driven by need, and not by a coincidental prior commitment of resources.  It is a bold move, but one that should be applauded by anyone who cares about the integrity of the regulatory regime.

The new EASA organization chart can be found online.

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How Will EASA SMS Rules Affect DIstributors?

July 28, 2011 by Leave a comment

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has formally begun the process of implementing Safety Management System (SMS) regulations.  Because past practice has been for certificate holders to “flow-down” a portion of their regulatory obligations to distributors, SMS and the manner in which it is implemented internationally remains an important issue for distributors.

EASA issued the Terms of Reference (TOR) for task number MDM.055 on July 18, 2011. This task anticipates the creation of adequate rules and guidance material to permit EASA to implement a set of SMS rules.

The Terms of Reference do not specifically explain to whom the SMS rules created under this project would apply – they merely mention some of the parties to whom ICAO has recommended apply it. This is a more important omission than some people may understand, and it provides EASA with the ability to dynamically change the scope of application as necessary during the course of the rulemaking project without amending the TOR. Under current ICAO recommendations, SMS should apply to air carriers, repair stations, manufacturers and airports. In the United States, the FAA made the decision to create two different SMS rules – one for airports, and then a second one for air carriers that is intended to be later applied to repair stations and manufacturers. EASA has said that it is amending COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 2042/2003 of 20 November 2003. This regulation applies to design and production organizations as well as maintenance organizations (but not to air carriers). EASA is clearly leaving itself open to any reasonable implementation strategy.

The final shape of SMS rules in EASA will be important to distributors who do business with both Europe and other parts of the world, because the data requirements of SMS could lead to reporting requirements from distributors to their SMS-compliant customers.

EASA intends for the internal EASA task group to do the following , as part of this task:

  • Review the existing rules and advisory guidance;
  • Adopt provisions for application for, and processing of, alternative means of compliance, to support standardization;
  • Implement management systems requirements to support compliance with the relevant ICAO standards on SMS;
  • Implement in the SMS standards new guidance on human factors for maintenance;

This SMS project will be worked internally within EASA, although EASA has reserved to itself the right to call informal meetings with industry or National Aviation Authorities for additional feedback. This internal project mechanism is consistent with the process recently used by Japan to create its SMS rules for repair stations (they offered the proposed rules for notice and comment but did not otherwise seek input from the international community). It is different from the FAA’s approach in the United States … the FAA formed an Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) made up of industry and FAA and took advice from the ARC on how to formulate the air carrier SMS rules.

EASA has a very aggressive timetable set for the SMS project. They expect to issue a Notice of Proposed Amendment (NPA) to seek public comment in the second quarter of 2012.

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