Our team has been through enough production ramps to know this: the hard part isn’t hiring faster or buying more machines. It’s proving, day after day, that you built each unit under control.
AS9100 and IA9101 audits care about objective evidence. Travelers. Controlled work instructions. Training records. Nonconformance decisions. A coherent, defensible build story for a specific serial number.
If you can’t reconstruct that story without chasing people down the hallway, you’re not rate-ready.
And this isn’t happening in isolation.
Industry-wide deliveries are suddenly almost back to peak levels in real-dollar terms. Jetliner output is forecast to rise more than 30% year over year. Single-aisle production is accelerating north of 20%. Twin-aisle is rebounding even faster. Defense is growing simultaneously.
The entire system is ramping at once.
That’s why Boeing’s 737 ramp matters right now.
Boeing reported the 737 production rate increased to 42 aircraft per month. Reuters has reported plans for a fourth 737 line in Everett in mid-summer 2026, with a path toward roughly 47 per month in 2027 and a longer-term goal of 63 per month over several years.
Those are big numbers.
And when numbers get big, small cracks get loud.
Especially in an industry that is, by its own admission, “at the whim of the supply gods.”
The stance
Rate readiness is an evidence program first, and a capacity program second.
Speed multiplies variation. It stresses handoffs. It exposes weak revision control. It turns “we’ll fix that later” into a systemic habit.
When the execution system can’t keep up, good people fill the gaps with email threads, spreadsheets, and verbal updates. I don’t blame them. They’re trying to protect schedule.
But those tools move parts. They do not reliably move evidence.
And evidence is what survives audits, escapes, regulator scrutiny, and customer escalations.
As rates climb across the industry: not just at Boeing, but Airbus, widebody programs, and defense platforms. The tolerance for undocumented variability shrinks.
Because at 42 a month, variation scales.
At 63 a month, it compounds.
What people get wrong about ramps
Most ramp conversations center on staffing, machine hours, and supplier capacity.
Those matter.
But the fragile part is the record chain.
The FAA has been clear that production expansion must follow demonstrated quality control. That is not a PR statement. It is a structural truth about regulated manufacturing. If your quality system cannot keep up with your production rate, your production rate is theoretical.
The broader market context makes this sharper.
Jetliners are projected to grow more than 30% next year. Military output nearly 25%. Forgings, engines, and interiors are already identified as constrained nodes. The industry is simultaneously attempting to recover margin, expand output, and repair regulatory trust.
Under margin pressure, the first things to bend are documentation discipline and nonconformance rigor.
Jobs get completed “in spirit.”
Sign-offs happen after the fact.
Deviations get handled informally.
Engineering cut-ins propagate unevenly.
And suddenly, your traceability depends on memory.
Memory is not objective evidence.
What auditors actually test at higher rates
At higher rates, auditors and customers don’t just sample product.
They sample coherence.
They pick a serial number and ask:
• What revision governed the work at the time of execution?
• Who performed it, and were they qualified on that date?
• What inspection results proved acceptance?
• Were there any nonconformances, and how were they dispositioned?
• Can you prove cut-in boundaries when specifications changed mid-stream?
That chain has to hold together without interpretation.
If any link requires “go ask someone,” you don’t have scalable control.
And when the entire industry is accelerating on single aisle, widebody, defense fighters, ISR platforms; regulators know where to look: the seams.
Where ramps quietly fail
Here’s a scenario we’ve seen more than once.
• A work order includes a torque-and-mark operation on a critical fastener. Mid-shift, engineering releases a revised torque value. The change is technically correct and safety-driven.
• In a weak system, someone walks the line and tells the team. They adjust. The traveler gets a handwritten note. Everyone feels responsible. Everyone means well.
• Six months later, you can’t prove which serial numbers were built under which torque spec without recreating history.
Now layer that scenario onto a production rate increase from 31 to 42 per month with plans for 47 and eventually 63.
Multiply that revision drift across:
- Forgings with long lead times
- Engine hardware
- Supplier-delivered assemblies
- Interior installations
In a strong system, the revision is formally released under change control. Point-of-use instructions update in a controlled way. Work in process is clearly segregated by cut-in. Operator qualification for the revised step is verified. Torque results are recorded against the correct revision for each serial number.
It feels slower in the moment.
It is dramatically faster over the quarter because you are not re-auditing your own work.
The honest tradeoff
The objection I hear from operations leaders is real:
“If we tighten all this up during a ramp, we’ll slow the line.”
Yes. You might, at first.
But the real tradeoff is not records versus throughput.
It’s discipline now versus containment later.
Containment multiplies.
It spreads across shipped product.
Across suppliers.
Across customer confidence.
Across regulators.
Across global fleets.
It consumes leadership time.
It erodes trust internally and externally.
It freezes future rate approvals.
Borrowing risk at compound interest is not a growth strategy.
And in today’s environment, where deliveries are nearly back to historical peaks, regulators have no incentive to accept “growth first, control later.”
What can Boeing suppliers do in the coming weeks
Plant managers can focus on a few practical moves:
• Create a simple, one-page build story checklist for every serialized unit. Traveler, governing revision, qualification proof, inspection results, MRB linkage. No interpretation required.
• Measure revision propagation. Not just “engineering released it,” but how long it takes for point-of-use instructions to reflect it everywhere they must across shifts, lines, and suppliers.
• Gate critical operations by current qualification status. If an exception is made, record who authorized it and why.
• Standardize the nonconformance and rework record set so it reads clearly across tiers and survives a customer audit without translation.
• Treat spikes in traveled work and after-the-fact corrections as process-control signals, not scheduling inconveniences.
• Monitor constrained nodes (forgings, engine components, interiors) for documentation drift when parts arrive late or under deviation.
None of this is glamorous. It will not make headlines.
But when the entire aerospace industry is trying to grow at once (civil up more than 20%, military up nearly 25%, widebody rebounding 50%) the system stress is cumulative.
Evidence discipline is what prevents systemic fatigue.
Why This Matters to Us
This is precisely why we built Connect 981 the way we did — as infrastructure for maintaining AS9100-compliant execution and audit-ready evidence at production rate.
The goal is straightforward: preserve configuration control and complete, objective traceability at the serial-number level — even as production accelerates across lines, shifts, and supplier tiers. Especially when constrained hardware, supplier-delivered assemblies, late engineering releases, or deviation activity introduce risk into the record chain.
In practice, that means:
- The drawing and work instruction revision in effect at the time of execution — not after-the-fact reconciliation.
- Clear effectivity and cut-in control when engineering changes release midstream.
- Operator certification and authorization verified at time-of-work for critical processes.
- Inspection, verification, and acceptance records captured against the governing configuration.
- Nonconformance, MRB disposition, and rework activity traceable into a complete as-built history.
Because at higher rates, audits don’t just test product — they test the integrity of the evidence.
And if the record set cannot withstand scrutiny without interpretation, the rate will not hold.
The larger lesson
Capacity is visible.
Evidence is structural.
Right now, aerospace output is almost back to peak levels. The demand side looks strong. The backlog is real.
But supply chains remain tight. Forgings, engines, interiors, and certification bandwidth are constrained.
Which means the only sustainable way to increase rate is to increase control.
In regulated aerospace manufacturing, structure wins every time.
And if rate increases are going to be real and durable. The evidence has to scale with the metal.
Sources
- Boeing: “Boeing Reports Fourth Quarter Results” (Jan. 27, 2026)
- Reuters: “Boeing plans to open fourth 737 production line in mid-summer” (Feb. 10, 2026)
- FAA: Updates on Boeing 737-9 MAX aircraft
- FAA: FAA halts Boeing MAX production expansion to improve quality control (Jan. 24, 2024)
- Aviation Week: “Opinion: Why Boeing Remains A Work In Process” (Jan. 30, 2026)
- IAQG: 9100 QMS requirements overview
- IAQG: 9101 QMS audit requirements overview