Design and Development of Aircraft Systems, 3rd Edition

9Configuration Control

9.1 Introduction

A major consideration in the development, deployment, and support of any system is the introduction of configuration control (known colloquially as ‘config control’). Configuration control serves the following aims:

• It establishes systems design baselines in a manner such that all those elements necessary for correct system function are organised to ensure full system compatibility.
• It enables changes to the baselines to be introduced in a controlled manner and all changes to be made visible with full traceability.
• It ensures that as a system evolves through different configurations or standards full compatibility is maintained at every stage.
• It maintains compatibility where desired between early and later system/product development implementations.

The key principles of configuration control are described in the following section. These aims combine to achieve baseline data sets that are common and consistent to all users, and ensure that changes or increments to the baseline are controlled. It is important to note that products have multiple design standards that co‐exist through the product lifecycle – in other words sub‐sets of the product may be changing at different times before they are assembled into the completed product.

9.2 Configuration Control Process

Configuration control is applied by establishing and controlling the issue of all authoritative documents and databases that define the product design. ‘Documents’ in a ...