Documentation

AS9102 first article reports

Last updated 6 August 2026

A first article inspection report is three forms, and most of what goes on them is already in the plan by the time you need one. ctrlPlanner builds them from the plan rather than asking you to retype it, which is the difference between an afternoon and a few minutes.

The forms follow AS9102 Rev C.

Form 1: part number accountability

Part and drawing identity, whether the report is a full or a partial FAI, whether the part is a detail or an assembly, and the sign-off block. An assembly also gets its indexed part numbers listed.

The identity fields come from a snapshot taken when the report was generated, not from the live plan. Re-downloading a report you filed a year ago prints it as it was, even though the plan has moved on three revisions since.

Form 2: product accountability

Materials, special processes and functional tests. The special processes table is built from the operations you marked as special processes in the routing, with the supplier taken from the vendor on the operation, so plating and heat treat arrive already listed.

Form 3: characteristic accountability

One row per ballooned characteristic: number, where it is on the drawing, its designator, the requirement, the measured result, any designed tooling, a nonconformance number and comments.

Pagination is done by ctrlPlanner rather than left to the browser, at twenty-six rows a sheet, and every sheet repeats the identifying header. A page break in the middle of a characteristic is the kind of thing that gets a report handed back.

What is filled in for you, and what is not

• The requirement text is generated from the characteristic, including walked limits and GD&T notation.
• Designed tooling is pre-filled from the inspection method you planned.
• Reviewer and approver default to the names in shop settings, and dates default to today.
• Drawing number and drawing revision default to N/A rather than quietly borrowing the part number, because Rev C treats them as separate fields and a guess there is a finding.

The report identifier

A FAIR identifier is suggested from the part, revision and date, with the serial number appended once you enter one. It is a suggestion: overwrite it with your own scheme, and press Suggest to rebuild it if you change the inputs.

Keeping reports

Generated reports are kept with the plan and listed in the report history, so a plan file carries its own inspection record and can be re-downloaded from any machine that has it.

The free tool

There is a standalone AS9102 builder that needs no account and no plan. It renders the same three forms from the same code; what differs is where the characteristics come from.

• Open the free AS9102 tool
• Next: exports and packets