design authority

A design authority is the organization or formally appointed role that has legal, technical, and procedural responsibility for a product’s design. It controls the approved design definition, decides what constitutes a conforming or nonconforming condition, and authorizes any changes or deviations from the baseline design.

Scope and responsibilities

In industrial and regulated manufacturing environments, the design authority commonly:

• Owns the baseline design, including drawings, models, specifications, and bills of material
• Defines acceptance criteria and tolerances that production and quality must apply
• Reviews and approves design changes through formal change control processes
• Assesses nonconformances and determines whether rework, repair, or use-as-is is acceptable
• Issues and approves deviations, waivers, and concessions to allow controlled departure from the design
• Maintains configuration control and traceability of design revisions

The design authority may be an internal engineering organization, a specific engineering role, or an external customer or type certificate holder, depending on contracts and regulatory frameworks.

Operational meaning in manufacturing systems

Within MES, PLM, ERP, and quality systems, the design authority is the reference owner of:

• Released design data linked to routings, work instructions, and inspection plans
• Approval steps for engineering change notices and configuration updates
• Dispositions for nonconforming material that require design approval, such as repairs or concessions

Workflow configurations often model the design authority as an approver or sign-off step for changes affecting form, fit, function, safety, or regulatory compliance.

Use in aerospace and other regulated sectors

In aerospace and similar highly regulated industries, the design authority commonly:

• Holds design approval from the aviation or relevant regulatory body
• Determines whether proposed repairs or rework restore full conformity to the approved design
• Approves concessions or deviations when a part does not fully meet the design but may still be accepted under controlled conditions

Production, maintenance, and quality functions typically cannot independently change or override design requirements without documented approval from the design authority.

Common confusion

The term “design authority” is sometimes confused with:

• Manufacturing authority: responsible for how the product is built, not for the design definition itself.
• Regulatory authority: the external agency that grants approvals; it may recognize a design authority but is not the same entity.

In many organizations, the design authority collaborates with manufacturing and quality but retains final say on what the official design is and which deviations are technically acceptable.

Link to the source context

In the context of scrap, rework, repair, and concession, the design authority is the body that decides whether a nonconformance can be corrected to meet the original design, repaired under an approved method, or accepted via a concession or deviation, and ensures that these decisions are documented and traceable.