Data sheet Position on the V: Certify Revised
Certification & Compliance
Certification planning from the Plan for Software Aspects of Certification (PSAC) through the Software Accomplishment Summary (SAS), authority liaison, and ARP4754B/ARP4761A safety assessment, so there are no surprises when the approval is due.
- Standards
- DO-178C, ARP4754B, ARP4761A, DO-326A
- Assurance
- Up to Design Assurance Level (DAL) A
- When to call us
- Planning, or before any authority review
- Delivery
- Mostly remote, on-site as needed
Scope
The approval is decided in the plans.
A certification program commits to what it will do in its plans, and everything afterwards is judged against them. We write those plans with you, keep the evidence aligned to them through development and verification, and sit across the table from the authority and its delegates when the reviews come.
On the systems side, the same discipline covers ARP4754B development assurance and the ARP4761A safety assessment that sets each item's development assurance level.
Increasingly, the same programs carry an airworthiness security obligation alongside the safety one. We help teams plan and produce security certification evidence under the DO-326A/ED-202A family — the security risk assessment, its interlock with the ARP4761 safety assessment, and the continuing-airworthiness commitments of DO-355 — with the same evidence discipline we apply to DO-178C.
Deliverables
Five plans and three standards at the start, one summary at the end.
| Document | What it is | First reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| PSAC | Plan for Software Aspects of Certification, the agreement with the authority | Stage of Involvement (SOI) 1 |
| SDP | Software Development Plan | SOI 1 |
| SVP | Software Verification Plan | SOI 1 |
| SCMP | Software Configuration Management Plan | SOI 1 |
| SQAP | Software Quality Assurance Plan | SOI 1 |
| Standards | Software requirements, design and code standards | SOI 1 |
| SAS | Software Accomplishment Summary, what was actually done against the PSAC | SOI 4 |
SOI: the authority's Stage of Involvement reviews, described in §3.
The four reviews
Scheduled engineering events, not exams.
The authority's four Stage of Involvement (SOI) reviews each sample a different part of the evidence.
- SOI 1 Planning Are the plans and standards complete, consistent and compliant?
- SOI 2 Development Do requirements, design and code follow the plans, and do they trace?
- SOI 3 Verification Do tests, reviews and coverage actually prove the requirements?
- SOI 4 Final Is the evidence complete and the SAS true?
Who signs what
Know whose signature closes an issue.
- Applicant Owns the approval and the relationship with the authority.
- Delegate Speaks for the authority on the findings it is delegated.
- Authority TCCA, FAA or EASA, which grants the approval.
- Supplier Owns evidence, but no approval of its own.
Field notes