In every certification programme, there is a conversation that should happen in the first weeks. It almost never does and mostly get pushed to CDR preparation time... The compliance strategy conversation
Not the certification plan - the plan is a document describing the certification project and its milestones. The strategy is different: how will we demonstrate compliance with each group of requirements? Where are the critical interfaces between disciplines? Where is this programme most likely to run into difficulty? What means of compliance will we use? Most importantly: why? And can we explain our position to the Authorities when they ask?
Having that conversation early, before the design hardens and workstreams separate into silos, changes the shape of the programme. It identifies the hard requirements before they become surprises. It surfaces the interfaces before they become gaps.
The programmes that close out cleanly had this conversation early. Usually informally, led by someone who had done something similar before and knew where the problems would be. The institutional knowledge carried the strategy.
The programmes that ran late did not have it. The compliance strategy emerged requirement by requirement as the team discovered what they needed to demonstrate. In some difficult case the how was also discovered late. By the time the full picture was clear, parts of it were expensive to address.
At what point in your programmes does the compliance strategy become explicitly shared across the full engineering team? Which tools do you use to share data? Would love to hear form STC and OEM alike, if you care to share! Book an appointment and let's find out how CIVIRES can help you with that!