Standards

Does ISO9001:2015 and/or AS9100D differentiate "deviations" from "waivers," or was that terminology implemented by the DoD? For some reason I recall a question on one of the ASQ exams I took a while back asking what the difference between the two is. I know historically, a deviation has been defined as a request to accept a nonconformance that is understood prior to work start while a waiver is that found during production. I did a little digging and found that the DoD did away with the separation (not sure when) but I cannot seem to find such definitions in ISO9001 or AS9100. Can someone help me clarify?

Hello Kelly,

I'll tackle this from the ISO 9001/9000 perspective....  There was a requirement in earlier revisions of ISO 9001 to determine "exclusions" and to provide justifications, usually documented within the organization's quality manual.  This changed in the 2015 revision of ISO 9001 to now require that "justifications" be provided as documented information within the company's scope statement.   (See Clause A.5, "Applicability" in ISO 9001:2015 for further explanation).  The short answer from the ISO 9001:2015 perspective is that neither deviations or waivers are mentioned in regard to a company's scope.  There is mention of deviation in clause 0.3.3 citing a positive deviation arising from risk as an opportunity, but this usage of that term appears far from your thoughts on the subject.


I will defer discussion of AS 9100D's use of these terms to their experts, but also recognize that the Aerospace standard continues to use ISO 9001 (now ISO 9001:2015) as its foundation. 

I don't know of a standard definition for deviation or waiver.  It appears that it's related to Control of Non-Conforming Materials and/or Non-Conforming Process.  When working with suppliers and product quality specifications, granting a deviation would be to grant a concession to the purchase specification (i.e. part specification or drawing).  A supplier may detect a non-conformance and request a deviation.  A customer may detect a non-conformance and grant a concession (or waiver).  Both processes usually use some form of a Material Review Board (MRB) and/or Nonconforming Material Report (NCMR) to document both the issue and the actions taken to address the issue.  Accepting a non-conformance with appropriate evaluation of the potential negative impacts to product quality is a type of action taken in response to the non-conformance.

You may be right that DoD has their own definitions for deviation and waiver.