How should suppliers document ballooned drawings for FAI?

Suppliers should document ballooned drawings for FAI by assigning a unique, traceable identifier to each applicable design characteristic and linking that identifier to the corresponding entry in the FAI report, commonly AS9102 Form 3. The ballooned drawing should be based on the correct customer-released drawing, model, specification, and revision, and it should follow any purchase order, customer portal, or program-specific FAI instructions that have been flowed down.

The purpose is not to create a prettier drawing. The purpose is to make the first article evidence reviewable: what requirement was inspected, where it came from, what result was recorded, what acceptance criteria applied, and whether the result was accepted or handled through the required nonconformance process.

What should be ballooned

In a typical aerospace or regulated manufacturing FAI, suppliers should account for all applicable design characteristics. That usually includes more than dimensional features.

• Dimensions and tolerances.
• Geometric dimensioning and tolerancing requirements, including feature control frames where applicable.
• Drawing notes that impose measurable or verifiable requirements.
• Material, special process, finish, coating, marking, and serialization requirements.
• Key characteristics, critical characteristics, or customer-designated characteristics.
• Referenced specifications when they impose requirements on the part or assembly.

Reference dimensions, basic dimensions, and informational notes should be handled carefully. They may still need to be identified for traceability, but they are not always inspected as independent acceptance criteria. For example, a basic dimension is usually controlled through the related GD&T requirement, not treated as a separate plus/minus dimension unless the customer’s method requires it.

How the numbering should work

Each balloon number should correspond to one line item or clearly related requirement in the FAI report. Reusing numbers, skipping without explanation, or combining unrelated requirements creates review risk and often leads to customer rejection or rework of the FAI package.

Suppliers should keep the numbering stable within the submitted package. If a drawing is re-ballooned because of a revision change, missing characteristic, or customer comment, the change should be controlled and explainable. Renumbering the entire drawing late in the process can break traceability to inspection results, certificates, FAIR entries, and supplier portal records.

Drawing revision and source control matter

The ballooned drawing should identify the drawing number, revision, sheet, model or dataset reference if applicable, and any specifications used to interpret the requirement. A ballooned PDF, CAD screenshot, or automated characteristic extraction is only useful if it can be tied back to the released engineering definition.

Suppliers should not mark up an obsolete drawing, an uncontrolled customer email attachment, or a local copy without confirming it matches the released configuration. In brownfield environments, this often depends on how well the supplier’s document control, PLM access, customer portal, QMS, and inspection systems are synchronized. Weak revision control is a common FAI failure mode.

Digital ballooning is acceptable only if controlled

Digital ballooning tools can reduce manual effort, but they do not remove supplier responsibility for completeness and accuracy. Optical character recognition, model-based characteristic extraction, and automated numbering can miss notes, misread tolerances, split GD&T incorrectly, or fail to capture requirements embedded in specifications.

If digital tools are used, the supplier should have a controlled process for review, approval, access control, audit trail, and version retention. In regulated environments, the tool and workflow may also need to fit the organization’s validation, cybersecurity, export control, and record retention requirements. Those expectations vary by customer, contract, and site maturity.

Common documentation failures

• Only ballooning dimensions and missing drawing notes, material callouts, finish requirements, or special processes.
• Using balloon numbers that do not match the FAI report line items.
• Submitting a ballooned drawing from the wrong drawing revision.
• Failing to identify customer-designated key or critical characteristics.
• Treating model-based requirements inconsistently with the drawing or authority dataset.
• Not documenting how supplier-controlled processes, outsourced operations, or certificates support the characteristic.
• Changing the ballooned drawing after inspection without maintaining traceability to the original results.

What is site-specific

The exact format is often customer- or program-specific. Some customers require AS9102 forms, some require submission through a supplier portal such as Net-Inspect or an equivalent system, and some impose their own ballooning conventions. Others may require alignment with model-based definition practices, source inspection, delegated inspection, or specific characteristic numbering rules.

Suppliers should treat the customer’s flowed-down requirement as controlling. AS9102 provides a common structure, but it does not eliminate the need to follow purchase order clauses, engineering notes, QMS procedures, and customer-specific FAI instructions.

Practical minimum expectation

A defensible ballooned drawing package should allow an experienced reviewer to pick any requirement on the released drawing and quickly find the corresponding FAI result, evidence source, and disposition. If that trace is unclear, the ballooned drawing has not done its job, even if the inspection itself was performed correctly.