Three terms decide almost everything about who can compete where in this industry, and what they are allowed to earn for it. Learn these three and the rest of the value chain organises itself.
Build-to-print (BTP) means the OEM or Tier-1 hands a supplier a complete drawing, a named material specification and a defined process, and the supplier's job is to execute it exactly. The OEM has already done the hard engineering; the supplier is renting out precision and capacity, not judgement. A risk-sharing partnership (RSP) — sometimes called "black box" work — is the opposite: the supplier co-funds development, owns the process and often the tooling design, and in exchange keeps exclusive rights to supply that part for the life of the programme. Industry commentary on this split is blunt about the consequence: build-to-print suppliers sit "squeezed between material costs and OEM pricing pressure," while risk-sharing partners share in the programme's long-run profit — and its downside.
AS9100 is the aerospace industry's quality-management-system standard — a precondition for being taken seriously, roughly equivalent to a very strict ISO 9001. It says a company runs a disciplined factory. It says nothing about whether a specific process — a heat-treatment cycle, a weld, a coating, a non-destructive test — actually produces the metallurgical result an aircraft needs. That second, narrower certification is Nadcap (the National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program), and it accredits exactly those "special processes": heat treatment, welding, surface treatment, chemical processing and non-destructive testing. Almost every hard, high-margin step in this value chain is a Nadcap-accredited special process. As of an August 2026 reading of the Nadcap Qualified Manufacturers List, 51 Indian facilities hold Nadcap heat-treating accreditation alone, concentrated in Karnataka, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.
A part is not sold once it is made correctly; it is sold once a customer has added the exact supplier, at the exact facility, making that exact part number, to its Approved Supplier List. Getting there involves a First Article Inspection (FAI) — a full, one-time dimensional and characteristic check of the first production part, which industry guidance says typically takes two to six weeks by itself — followed by a Production Part Approval Process (PPAP) confirming the supplier can hold that standard at full production rate. The FAI must be repeated after almost any change: a new tool, a new process, a new manufacturing location, or a break in production of two years or more. None of this is what actually takes years; what takes years is everything around it — building an AS9100 quality system from scratch, earning Nadcap accreditation for every special process used, and a customer's own track-record requirements before it will commit real production volume to a new name.
| Term | What it actually certifies | Who typically holds it | What it does NOT tell you |
|---|---|---|---|
| AS9100 | The quality-management system is disciplined and documented | Nearly every serious aerospace supplier, including simple machine shops | Whether any specific process is metallurgically sound |
| Nadcap | One named special process (heat-treat, NDT, weld, coating, chemical) | A smaller, growing set of Indian facilities — 51 for heat-treat alone, Aug 2026 | Whether the company is approved to supply any particular customer's part |
| Approved Supplier List | This exact part, this exact facility, is cleared for this exact customer | An even smaller set — won one program at a time, not once for the whole industry | Whether that approval transfers to a sister plant, a new material batch, or a different customer |
Source: Dart Consultants, from valencesurfacetech.com (AS9100 vs Nadcap), Nadcap Qualified Manufacturers List via Business Standard (17 Aug 2026), and standard FAI/PPAP industry guidance (openbom.com, qcadvisor.com, unitek-kiwa.com).
If a part's value comes from its geometry alone, assume it is build-to-print, assume Nadcap matters less than AS9100, and assume the margin is thin. If a part's value comes from what happened to its metallurgy — a heat-treat cycle, a coating, a weld joint that has to survive fatigue — assume Nadcap is the real gate, assume the customer relationship is sticky once won, and assume that is where this report's attention should go.
