Excel spreadsheets have been the backbone of many DOA offices for decades. They're familiar, flexible, and "free." But as certification complexity grows—more requirements, more aircraft types, more stakeholders—the cracks in this approach are showing in ways that directly impact your bottom line.
The Hidden Cost of "Free"
When we talk to DOA offices about their certification workflows, the conversation almost always starts the same way: "We use Excel." And there's nothing wrong with that—Excel is a powerful tool. But it wasn't built for managing the complex, interconnected relationships that airworthiness certification demands.
Consider what happens when a single requirement changes in your compliance matrix:
- Every document referencing that requirement needs checking
- Every compliance showing linked to it needs verification
- Every test report that demonstrates compliance needs review
- Every cross-reference in your matrix needs updating
In Excel, that's manual work. Every single time.
The Disconnect Problem
The most dangerous failure mode of Excel-based certification management isn't inefficiency—it's disconnects. When your compliance matrix lives in one spreadsheet and your documents live in a file server, the only link between them is human memory and manual cross-referencing.
That works fine when you have 50 requirements and one engineer. It breaks down catastrophically when you have 300+ requirements, multiple engineers, and an authority audit in two weeks.
What's the Alternative?
Purpose-built certification management tools like CIVIRES maintain these relationships automatically. When you update a requirement, every linked document, compliance showing, and test reference updates with it. Not because someone remembered to check—because the system enforces it.
The result? Your engineers spend time on engineering, not on Excel archaeology. Your audits go smoothly because traceability is built in, not bolted on. And your 3 AM panic moments become a thing of the past.
Making the Transition
Moving from Excel to a proper certification management system doesn't have to be painful. The key is choosing a tool that understands your domain—one built by people who've actually managed certification projects, not by generic software developers trying to learn aviation.
That's exactly why we built CIVIRES. Twenty years of airworthiness experience, distilled into software that speaks your language.