AMC1 CAO.A.100(b) Quality system and organisational review    

CAA ORS9 Decision No. 1

QUALITY SYSTEM — INDEPENDENT AUDIT

(a) An essential element of the quality system is the independent audit.

(b) The independent audit should be an objective process of routine sample checks of all aspects of the organisation’s ability to carry out continuing airworthiness management and/or maintenance to the standards required by Regulation (EU) No 1321/2014. It should include some product sampling (e.g. product audit) as this is the end result of the process.

(c) The independent audit should provide an objective overview of the complete set of continuing- airworthiness-management- and/or maintenance-related activities.

(d) The organisation should establish an audit plan to show when and how often the activities as required by Part-M, Part-ML and Part-CAO will be audited.

(e) The audit plan should ensure that all aspects of Part-CAO compliance are verified every year, including all the subcontracted activities, and the auditing may be carried out as a complete single exercise or (sub)divided over the annual period. The independent audit should not require each procedure to be verified against each product line when it can be shown that the particular procedure is common to more than one product line and the procedure has been verified every year without resultant findings. Where findings have been identified, the particular procedure should be verified against other product lines until the findings have been rectified, after which the independent audit procedure may revert to a 1-year interval for the particular procedure.

(f) Provided that there are no safety-related findings, the audit planning cycle specified in this AMC may be increased by up to 100 %, subject to agreement by the CAA.

(g) Where the organisation has more than one location approved, the quality system should include a description of how these locations are integrated into the system, and include a plan to audit each location at a frequency consistent with the extent of activity at the particular location, not exceeding 2 years.

(h) A report should be issued each time an audit is carried out describing what was checked and the resulting non-compliance findings against applicable requirements and procedures.