Certification plan evidence review for equipment suppliers

When this review is needed

• A certification plan is about to be agreed with an authority and its commitments have not been tested against what the data can deliver.
• The certification basis shifted and the plan may still name the basis it was written to.
• A finding questions whether the plan's stated scope captured every affected area.
• The program has advanced and the plan's review commitments should be checked against the evidence now in hand.

The problem

A certification plan is written early, when the design is a proposal and the evidence is a forecast, and it hardens into a set of commitments an authority will hold the supplier to. The basis is chosen, the affected areas are scoped, and review points are promised, all before the data exists to back them. As the program moves, the plan and the reality diverge quietly: the plan still promises what it promised, and the data package grows toward something adjacent but not identical.

What gets reviewed

• The certification basis in the plan confirmed against the basis the program is actually working to
• Affected areas scoped in the plan checked against the change and its real reach
• Each review commitment matched to a path to the data that will satisfy it
• Means of compliance proposed in the plan checked for feasibility against the item
• Roles, delegation, and involvement points in the plan confirmed consistent with the program
• Divergence between the plan's promises and the current data package identified

What gets validated

• The certification basis named in the plan matches the basis the program is working to now
• The affected areas in the plan capture the actual reach of the change
• Each review commitment has an identifiable path to the data that will satisfy it
• The proposed means of compliance are feasible for this item rather than aspirational
• Delegation and involvement points in the plan match how the program is actually staffed and run

Evidence normally required

• The certification plan as it stands or as proposed to the authority
• The certification basis and any amendments the program is working to
• The change definition and the areas it actually affects
• The current state of the data package against the plan's commitments
• Any delegation or involvement arrangements established for the program

Common discrepancies

• A certification basis in the plan that a later amendment moved past
• Affected areas scoped narrower than the change's actual reach
• A review commitment with no path to the data that would satisfy it
• A proposed means of compliance the item cannot actually support

What is at stake

A plan that overcommits sets up findings the supplier cannot answer without renegotiating the plan itself, which is slow and public. A plan that misidentifies the basis or under-scopes the affected areas is worse, because the whole data package is built to the wrong target, and the correction reopens work an authority has already started reviewing against the original plan. The plan is the agreement; a flaw in it costs more than a flaw in any single artifact.

How the work runs

What the buyer receives

• A gap list naming each basis, scope, or commitment in the plan that the program has outrun
• An evidence map from each plan commitment to the data that will satisfy it
• A closure sequence that treats basis and scope corrections as prerequisites to commitment fixes

Who uses the output

• Engineering leadership deciding whether the plan is a commitment the program can keep
• Certification staff who need the specific commitments and scope to reconcile with the data
• The team preparing to agree or revise the plan with an authority

How the work fits into the transaction or program

The certification plan is the agreement that governs everything downstream, the document that tells the authority what to expect and holds the supplier to it. This review checks the plan against the reality of the program before it hardens into commitments, so the basis, scope, and promises match the data the supplier can actually deliver rather than an early forecast.

Jurisdiction-specific considerations

FAA and EASA both work from an agreed certification plan, but each has its own expectations for how the basis is stated, how involvement points are defined, and how means of compliance are proposed. The review reads the plan against whichever authority will hold it, so a commitment that reads reasonable under one framework does not quietly overpromise or under-scope under the one that will actually enforce it.

Regulatory limits

This review reports whether the plan's commitments align with the data the program can produce. It does not agree the plan on the authority's behalf, does not set the certification basis, and does not make an airworthiness determination. Agreement of the plan and its basis remains between the supplier and the authority.

What this review does not cover

• Negotiating or agreeing the plan with the authority
• Setting the certification basis or the involvement points
• Producing the data the plan's commitments require

Specific to this review

• The certification plan is unusual in that its defects cost the most and are the hardest to unwind, because it is a binding agreement rather than a working document, and correcting it means renegotiating with the authority.
• Under-scoping the affected areas is the quiet failure that propagates furthest, since every requirement the plan failed to invoke is a requirement the data package was never built to meet.
• A review commitment made early can become infeasible as the design settles, and the plan carries the promise forward regardless until someone checks it against the item.
• The basis named in the plan drifts whenever an amendment lands, and because the plan is agreed once and revisited rarely, that drift can sit unnoticed until a finding surfaces it.

Sources

Frequently asked questions

Relevant glossary terms

Related pages

Where this fits