AQIP Aerospace Quality Intelligence Platform

Where the initiative starts, what each step adds, and what it can ultimately become. The label on each step says how real it is today.

1. FAI EngineerThe existing prototype foundationPrototype foundation
2. Drawing IntelligenceSource-linked extraction, verified by a personIn development
3. 3D Inspection TwinVerified 3D reconstruction and balloon-to-feature mappingResearch
4. AQIPYears 1–2: the productPlanned — Year 1
5. Secure Aerospace Quality IntelligenceEvidence, AI assurance and security on one graphPlanned — Year 2/3
6. Supplier Quality NetworkYear 3: suppliers and customers connectedPlanned — Year 2/3
7. Aerospace Manufacturing Trust InfrastructureYear 5: the long-term destinationLong-term vision

An EV Society™ initiative for advancing engineering capability and aerospace manufacturing quality research, with commercial product development and deployment through iTelematics® Software Private Limited.

EV Society™ and iTelematics® Software Private Limited are separate organisations with different roles. See the organisations and their roles.

1. More aerospace and defence manufacturing in India

   More aircraft, space and defence hardware is being designed and built domestically. More production means more part numbers, more suppliers and more quality records.

   Sources: [1][5]

2. Wider private and MSME participation

   Procurement and innovation programmes are opening this work to private companies, start-ups and MSMEs, many of them new to aerospace quality requirements.

   Sources: [2][3][4]

3. Indigenisation

   Replacing imported items with Indian-made ones moves qualification and first-article work to domestic suppliers.

   Sources: [1]

4. Deeper supply chains

   As primes and public-sector undertakings outsource more, quality requirements flow down through more tiers, and every tier has to return evidence.

5. A growing quality and documentation burden

   Each new part, customer and drawing revision adds inspection planning, FAI and records that are still largely prepared by hand.

6. Rising traceability expectations

   Customers increasingly expect a supplier to show quickly which material, process, measurement and approval stand behind a delivered part.

   Sources: [6]

7. Export readiness

   Suppliers that want international aerospace work have to meet the quality-system and first-article expectations used across global supply chains.

   Sources: [6][7][8]

8. Tighter supplier qualification

   Becoming and staying an approved aerospace supplier depends on consistent, auditable quality evidence.

Select a problem to see how it is handled today, what goes wrong, and what AQIP is planned to do about it.

AQIP is worth building only if every party gains. Each gives something to the shared record and gets something back.

AI interprets.Humans approve.Software proves.

1. Human accountability

   A named, authorised person approves every controlled record.

2. Explainable AI

   Every AI suggestion shows what it read and why it concluded what it did.

3. Source-level traceability

   Each characteristic points back to its exact place on the source drawing.

4. Configuration correctness

   Work is always tied to the revision it was done against.

5. Deterministic control for critical decisions

   Rules, not probabilities, decide what may be released.

6. Security by design

   Customer engineering data is protected from the first line of code.

7. Evidence over assumption

   A claim counts only when a record supports it.

8. Interoperability

   AQIP connects to the ERP, PLM, MES, CAD and CMM systems a factory already uses.

9. MSME usability

   A small quality team should be productive without a long implementation project.

10. Continuous validation

    Extraction and workflow quality are measured against verified benchmarks, release after release.

Fictitious aerospace bracket: part AQ-1042, Revision C. The data is invented for this page. No real drawing is used, and nothing here implies certification or customer acceptance.

Loading the demonstration…

Listing what is on a drawing is useful. Knowing exactly what a new revision changes, and which quality work it invalidates, is worth more.

One core platform, fifteen modules. Each carries one of six maturity labels. None of the six means production-ready.

Prototype foundation

Exists today in the FAI Engineer prototype. A foundation, not a production product.

In development

Being built now, beyond the prototype. Not released.

Planned — Year 1

Planned for Year 1 (2026–27). Not yet built.

Planned — Year 2/3

Planned for Years 2 and 3 (2027–29). Not yet built.

Research

Under investigation. Depends on validation, and may change or stop.

Long-term vision

Year 4 and beyond. A direction, not a commitment.

Core Platform

1. Module 1 In development

   Drawing Intelligence

   Reads engineering drawings and proposes characteristics for a person to verify.

2. Module 2 Prototype foundation

   Digital Characteristics

   One accountable record per characteristic, with its source and revision.

3. Module 3 Planned — Year 1

   Inspection Planning

   Builds an inspection plan from verified characteristics and approved rules.

4. Module 4 Planned — Year 1

   Measurement / CMM Hub

   Imports measurement results and maps them to characteristics.

5. Module 5 Prototype foundation

   FAI / FAIR

   Assembles first article inspection reports and shows what is missing. The prototype covers an AS9102 Form 3-oriented foundation only.

6. Module 6 Planned — Year 1

   Revision & Configuration Intelligence

   Compares revisions and scopes the quality work a change affects.

7. Module 7 Planned — Year 1

   Quality Evidence

   Links certificates, results and approvals to the requirement they satisfy.

8. Module 8 Planned — Year 2/3

   NCR / CAPA

   Nonconformance and corrective action tied to the part, process and supplier.

9. Module 9 Planned — Year 2/3

   SPC / Predictive Quality

   In-process monitoring first; predictive indicators are research.

10. Module 10 Planned — Year 2/3

    Supplier Quality

    Supplier deviations, requests and reviews on shared, structured evidence.

11. Module 11 Planned — Year 2/3

    Certification Evidence

    Audit and certification evidence retrievable by requirement.

12. Module 12 Planned — Year 2/3

    Quality APIs

    Controlled programmatic access to quality evidence for customer systems.

13. Module 13 Planned — Year 2/3

    Quality Passport

    The verified manufacturing history of a serialised part.

14. Module 14 Long-term vision

    Quality Intelligence

    Cross-part and cross-supplier insight from structured evidence.

15. Module 15 Research

    3D Inspection Twin

    Links balloons and characteristics to 3D geometry: approved CAD where it is supplied, an engineer-verified reconstruction where it is not.

Only the first group describes software that exists today, and it is a prototype. Everything else is ahead.

Three layers stack: what quality teams do, what AI helps them interpret, and the graph that holds every record. The fourth does not stack. Cybersecurity and governance surrounds all of them.

1. Quality Workflows

   What a quality team does.

   • Drawing
   • 3D Inspection Twin
   • Inspection
   • FAI
   • NCR/CAPA
   • SPC
   • Supplier Quality
   • Quality Passport

2. AI & Quality Intelligence

   What AI helps interpret, for a person to approve.

   • Document AI
   • Engineering AI
   • 2D→3D Intelligence
   • Revision Intelligence
   • Evidence Intelligence
   • Agentic Assistance
   • Predictive Quality

3. Aerospace Quality Graph

   Where every record, and every link between records, is kept.

   • Part
   • Revision
   • Characteristic
   • Geometry
   • Inspection
   • Measurement
   • Evidence
   • Configuration
   • Supplier
   • Serial Number

4. Cybersecurity & Governance

   Spans every layer above.

   • Identity
   • Access
   • Encryption
   • Audit
   • AI Governance
   • Data Security
   • Secure Deployment

Data moves down the stack. Nothing reaches the quality graph without passing human verification, and security governs every layer.

The controls behind the security layer are in Cybersecurity & Digital Trust; the limits on AI are in AI Assurance.

AQIP should integrate with the systems a manufacturer already runs. It should not initially attempt to replace all of them.

A 2D drawing can be a complete definition for a person who knows how to read it and still leave geometry unstated. A single view may not define any of these.

Fictitious aerospace bracket: part AQ-1042, Revision C. Select a balloon on the drawing, on the model or in the list: all three are the same selection. The part, its measurements and its statuses are invented for this page.

Loading the 3D Inspection Twin…

Not a decorative model. A way to find a requirement, its measurement and its evidence by pointing at the part.

• Research

  2D ↔ 3D balloon synchronisation

  Select a balloon on the drawing and its feature lights up on the model; select the feature and its record opens.

• Research

  Inspection Mode

  The model as a way to navigate requirement, method, equipment, measurement, evidence and approval.

• Research

  Visual FAI

  Move through a first article characteristic by characteristic, with the camera going to each one.

• Research

  3D quality overlay

  Pass, pending, fail, NCR, evidence-missing and revision-impacted states shown on the geometry.

• Planned — Year 2/3

  Authoritative STEP visualisation

  The customer's approved CAD, with characteristics mapped to its features.

• Long-term vision

  3D revision intelligence

  Revision C against Revision D, in 2D and in 3D, with the inspection work it affects.

• Long-term vision

  Spatial Quality Passport

  A serialised part's verified history, located on its geometry.

Nine steps. The two in green belong to a person: nothing after them happens until an engineer has reviewed the candidate.

If the customer also supplies approved 3D geometry, AQIP should prefer it. Displaying an authoritative model is more reliable than reconstructing one, and the two are never presented as the same thing.

How a geometry candidate could be produced. It ends, always, at a person.

1. Drawing input
2. OCR / CV
3. View detection
4. Projection matching
5. Dimension graph
6. Feature recognition
7. Constraint solver
8. Geometry candidate
9. 3D reconstruction
10. Confidence map
11. Engineer review

Drawings and CAD are sensitive. Every file follows the same security architecture as the rest of AQIP: see how uploaded engineering files are handled.

Compare two revisions in 2D and in 3D at once, and see which inspection characteristics the change reaches.

In the demonstration above this is the feature marked “Revision impacted”. Engineering and quality decide what has to be repeated; the comparison only shows them what is affected.

The serialised Quality Passport, connected to the geometry: not only whether a part was verified, but where.

A concept that depends on the Digital Quality Passport and on verified geometry existing first. Neither does today.

Every part, requirement, measurement and approval becomes an entity with explicit links to the others. The lower band adds geometry: the path from a 2D characteristic to the 3D feature it controls, and on to its inspection, measurement and evidence. Select an entity to see what the graph is planned to hold about it and what it connects to.

Loading the quality graph…

Five stages. Each is only useful once the one before it can be trusted, and the labels say how far along each is.

1. Document AIReads documents into structured fields.In development
2. Engineering AIUnderstands what the fields mean as engineering.In development
3. Workflow AICarries a verified result to the next controlled step.Planned — Year 1
4. Agentic AssistanceBounded agents prepare work for a person to decide.Research
5. Quality IntelligencePatterns across parts, suppliers and time.Long-term vision

1. Drawing
2. AI extractionAI interprets
3. Human verificationA person approves
4. Inspection planning
5. Measurement
6. Evidence
7. FAI preparation
8. Authorised approvalA person releases

Agentic AI can do useful preparatory work. It is never the authority for a controlled record.

One general assistant with broad access would be easy to build and impossible to trust. AQIP's design is the opposite: specialist agents, each with a narrow job and a stated limit. None is production software today.

What every agent is given

• Allowlisted tools

  An agent can call only the tools it has been granted.

• Minimum data

  It reads only the records its task needs.

• Minimum privileges

  It holds no permission a person in the same role would not hold.

• Bounded actions

  It proposes and prepares. It does not approve, release or delete.

• Audit trail

  Every tool call, input and output is logged against the agent and its version.

Zero Silent AI Approval, as an interface: an AI result and a geometry candidate, each waiting for a person. Choose an action to see the status it takes and what the record keeps.

Every important AI-assisted result keeps the trail that produced it.

A model or an agent is released the way a measuring instrument is: checked before use, watched in use, and re-checked.

• Registry

  Every model and agent version in use is listed with its approval.

• Rollback

  A release can be withdrawn to the last approved version.

• Regression

  A new version is re-run against the verified benchmark before release.

• Drift

  Correction rates are watched for a model getting worse in use.

• False negatives

  Missed characteristics are tracked first: they are the dangerous error.

• Dataset version

  Each benchmark result names the dataset version it was measured on.

• Release gate

  Quality and security both sign off before a version is used on customer work.

An AI component reads documents that someone else wrote. That makes it an attack surface, and it is designed as one.

A future AQIP may answer questions from a customer's own knowledge. It would retrieve only what that user is authorised to see.

Three questions a manufacturer has to be able to answer before a quality record is worth anything.

Cybersecurity is not a module beside the others. It runs underneath every one of them, in eight areas.

• Engineering drawing security

  Drawings and CAD are a customer's intellectual property, and in defence work can be controlled information.

• Manufacturing evidence security

  A measurement or certificate must be the one that was recorded, unaltered.

• Supplier collaboration security

  A supplier and its customer share exactly what a contract allows, and nothing else.

• AI security

  Documents are untrusted input, and an AI component can only do what it has been allowed to do.

• Identity

  Every action is attributable to a known person or a named service.

• Access

  People see the parts, revisions and records their role needs.

• Deployment isolation

  One customer's data is separated from another's, by tenant or by deployment.

• Auditability

  Who did what, to which record, when and with whose approval can always be reconstructed.

A security failure in a quality system does not stay a security failure. It becomes a part that should not have been accepted.

• Unauthorised drawing changeleads toWrong manufacturing requirement
• Altered CMM resultleads toFalse acceptance
• Stolen drawingleads toIP and defence risk
• Compromised supplier accountleads toFraudulent evidence

Six layers, from who is acting down to what an AI component is allowed to do.

Security is a first-class requirement, not a later phase. These are the controls the platform is being designed around; they are not a certification claim.

1. Security by design

   Threats are modelled before a feature is built, not after it ships.

2. Zero trust mindset

   No user, device, network or document is trusted because of where it is.

3. Least privilege

   Each person, service and agent gets the minimum access its task needs.

4. Defence-ready deployment

   Private, India-hosted and on-prem options, because much of this data cannot sit in a shared cloud.

5. Full auditability

   Actions, approvals, exports, configuration changes and AI activity are logged.

6. Data sovereignty

   The customer decides where its data lives and who may process it.

7. Controlled sharing

   Evidence reaches a supplier or customer only through an explicit, logged permission.

8. Secure AI

   Bounded tools, source grounding and human approval around every AI component.

9. Software supply chain security

   A bill of materials, managed dependencies and signed builds for what is shipped.

10. Incident readiness

    A rehearsed plan to detect, contain, notify and recover.

A drawing or a CAD file is untrusted input until it has been checked, and sensitive data from the moment it arrives. The 3D Inspection Twin is subject to all of this.

Each year adds a layer to the platform. Years 1 to 3 are planning targets; years 4 and 5 are the long-term vision. None is a commitment.

Years 4 and 5 depend on the structured evidence that the first three years create. Their work is listed in the roadmap above; this is where it leads.

• Year 4 · 2029–30: Quality Intelligence. Use the structured evidence the first three years create.
• Year 5 · 2030–31: Trust Infrastructure. Quality evidence that travels with the part, across the supply chain and into service.

1. Factory
2. Supplier
3. OEM
4. Product
5. Field
6. Feedback
7. AQIP intelligence

A future AQIP capability could translate approved customer and quality rules into deterministic digital controls. The rules would be written and approved by people; AI would not author authoritative quality procedures.

IF characteristic.critical = true
THEN inspection.frequency = 100%
AND calibrated_equipment = required
AND authorised_verifier = required

The step from quality documentation to quality intelligence: when something happens in service, the manufacturing record can be asked what it knew.

A customer system could ask for the conformance of one serialised part and receive a structured, permission-checked answer. No such API exists today.

GET /parts/AQ-1042/serial/000148/conformance

Start narrow. The pyramid is read from the top: the first customers are few and specific, and each later tier is opened only after the one above it works.

1. Initial ICP

   AS9100-oriented precision machining MSMEs serving aerospace and defence customers

   • 30–300 employees
   • CNC machining
   • CMM
   • A quality team
   • Recurring FAI requirements
   • PDF, Excel and manual workflow
   • Multiple customers
   • AS9100 or customer-quality requirements

2. Next

   Adjacent manufacturing processes

   • Sheet metal
   • Assemblies
   • Composites
   • Avionics
   • Electronics
   • Additive manufacturing

3. Later

   Customers and networks

   • Primes
   • DPSUs
   • OEM supplier networks
   • Space manufacturing
   • International aerospace suppliers

A practical map for the first hundred conversations. These are places to look, not relationships that exist.

The purpose of the first conversation is to understand how the work is really done. It is not a pitch.

After an interview, score what you heard. The indicator shows how good a pilot candidate the company is. It is a prompt for judgement, not a replacement for it.

Loading the scorecard…

Run the same job both ways and record every measure for each. A claim of improvement needs both columns.

Evaluating the AI: do not use only “accuracy”

The twin earns a place in the product only if it measurably helps an engineer, and only where it can be trusted. Measure both before offering it.

A demo is NOT product-market fit. These are the signals that count, because each one costs the customer something.

Every deal follows the same path, and each step produces evidence for the next.

1. Discovery
2. Workflow Audit
3. Live Dataset
4. Controlled Pilot
5. ROI Measurement
6. Commercial Proposal
7. Deployment
8. Customer Success
9. Expansion
10. Supplier Network

Decision makers

The first ninety days with a customer decide whether they stay.

No generic “AI transformation” content. Teach the category what good looks like, with evidence.

Several ways the same platform can earn. The label shows when each is planned to start; none is earning today.

Indicative pricing Illustrative

Illustrative commercial hypotheses — validate through customer discovery. These are not established market prices.

A rough estimate of what a supplier could save. The starting values are illustrative assumptions, not benchmarks; replace them with the customer's own numbers.

Loading the calculator…

Two ways AQIP can be bought. The second is how a supplier tool becomes a network. This network does not exist yet.

There is competition, and much of it is good at what it does. AQIP's strategy is not to be another ballooning tool.

AQIP strategy is not “another ballooning tool”. The differentiators below are strategic goals, not achieved advantages.

1. Requirement-to-evidence digital thread
2. Human-verifiable engineering AI
3. 2D-to-3D inspection intelligence with verified geometry
4. Cybersecurity and AI assurance built into the platform
5. Quality Graph
6. Revision/configuration intelligence
7. MSME-oriented deployment
8. Defence-grade/private deployment options
9. Supplier network architecture
10. Evidence portability/API
11. India-oriented aerospace supplier ecosystem
12. Long-term factory-to-field quality intelligence

Seven layers, built from the bottom up. The higher the layer, the longer it takes to earn and the harder it is to copy.

7. Layer 7Industry trust
6. Layer 6Supplier network
5. Layer 5Historical structured quality evidence
4. Layer 4Workflow integrations
3. Layer 3Quality Graph
2. Layer 2Verified aerospace drawing/quality benchmark datasets
1. Layer 1Domain expertise

Seven questions an investor will ask, answered briefly. No valuation is claimed anywhere on this page.

Why now?

Growing aerospace/defence manufacturing and supplier complexity.

Why this problem?

Quality is mandatory and recurring.

Why software?

Many workflows remain fragmented and repetitive.

Why AQIP?

Digital thread + Quality Graph + human-verifiable AI + 3D inspection intelligence + security by design + supplier network.

Why defensible?

The advantages that compound with use:

• Domain data
• Verified geometry-to-characteristic mappings
• Workflow depth
• Integrations
• Historical evidence
• Network effects
• Security and deployment trust

Why scale?

Supplier → OEM → network.

What is not proven yet?

Most of it. The FAI Engineer prototype exists; the 3D Inspection Twin and agentic assistance are research, and demand for them still has to be validated with customers.

Four stages, each unlocked by evidence from the one before.

1. Stage 1

   Bootstrap / Non-dilutive

   Capital

   Founder capital + non-dilutive programmes

   Objective

   Prototype + pilots + validation

   When

   Appropriate from day one, while the problem and the wedge are still being proven.

2. Stage 2

   Pre-seed

   Capital

   Pre-seed

   Objective

   Product engineering + domain team

   When

   Raise only after paid pilot signals.

3. Stage 3

   Seed

   Capital

   Seed

   Objective

   Repeatable sales + enterprise + integrations

   When

   Appropriate once pilots convert and the sales motion repeats without the founder in every deal.

4. Stage 4

   Growth

   Capital

   Growth

   Objective

   Supplier network + national/global expansion

   When

   Appropriate once customers bring their suppliers and the network model is working.

• Innovation

  We solve difficult engineering problems and continuously improve how aerospace quality work is performed.

• Quality

  We treat quality as engineering evidence, not paperwork.

• Safety & Security

  We protect engineering integrity, human authority and sensitive information.

• Team Empowerment

  Technology should amplify qualified engineers, not remove accountability.

• Customer-Centricity

  We solve measurable customer pain instead of building technology for its own sake.

• Traceability

  Every important conclusion should be explainable back to its source.

• Trust

  Long-term industry trust is more valuable than short-term feature velocity.

• Execution

  Real customer outcomes matter more than demos.

Ten roles and what each is accountable for. In a small team one person holds several; the responsibilities still need an owner.

How the team is expected to grow. Hire for the stage the company is in.

Six questions for any proposed feature. Tick the ones it genuinely answers yes to.

Each of these has ended companies like this one.

• ✕

  Do not build a complete QMS immediately. The wedge is FAI; breadth before depth wins no one.

• ✕

  Do not call everything AI. Customers buy outcomes, and auditors distrust buzzwords.

• ✕

  Do not automate engineering approval. Approval is a human authority and must stay one.

• ✕

  Do not build without quality-domain experts. Software skill alone will not earn trust in this field.

• ✕

  Do not claim compliance without validation. An unproven compliance claim is a liability for the customer.

• ✕

  Do not promise impossible extraction accuracy. No model is perfect; the design assumes review.

• ✕

  Do not become a custom development company. Bespoke work does not compound into a product.

• ✕

  Do not chase every manufacturing industry. Aerospace depth is the differentiator.

• ✕

  Do not rely only on grants. Grants fund R&D; customers fund a business.

• ✕

  Do not build 100 features without live customers. Unused features are cost, not progress.

• ✕

  Do not store sensitive drawings insecurely. One incident can end trust in the whole platform.

• ✕

  Do not replace ERP/PLM/MES unnecessarily. AQIP is the evidence layer between them, not their replacement.

What the company will measure. No values are shown, because there are no production results to report yet.

Sample classifications for planning. This register has not been formally audited.

The terms and acronyms used on this page.

The official bodies and standards this page refers to. Numbers match the citations in the text.

1. Department of Defence Production, Ministry of Defence, Government of India (opens in a new tab)Defence production and indigenisation policy and programmes.https://www.ddpmod.gov.in/
2. iDEX — Innovations for Defence Excellence (opens in a new tab)The defence innovation programme for start-ups and MSMEs.https://idex.gov.in/
3. Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Government of India (opens in a new tab)MSME policy, definitions and schemes.https://www.msme.gov.in/
4. SIDBI — Small Industries Development Bank of India (opens in a new tab)Finance and development programmes for MSMEs.https://www.sidbi.in/
5. IN-SPACe — Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (opens in a new tab)Private-sector participation in space activities.https://www.inspace.gov.in/
6. IAQG — International Aerospace Quality Group (opens in a new tab)The 9100-series aerospace quality management standards.https://iaqg.org/
7. SAE International — AS9102, Aerospace First Article Inspection Requirement (opens in a new tab)The first article inspection standard referred to on this page.https://www.sae.org/standards/content/as9102c/
8. SAE International — AS9100, Quality Management Systems for Aviation, Space and Defense (opens in a new tab)The quality management system standard referred to on this page.https://www.sae.org/standards/content/as9100d/

AQIP does not claim certification to, or compliance with, any of these standards. They are cited so that readers can check the requirements for themselves.