Study on resources allocation between airworthiness authority and aviation industry

In the circumstance of rapid progress of Chinese aviation industry and ambitious development of aeronautical manufacturing projects, the current airworthiness certification system of Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), which includes the legislation frame, airworthiness regulations and organization chart, is introduced. Now the CAAC airworthiness certification system still faces the challenges of the industry progress. The vision of CAAC airworthiness certification system and the key elements of the system improvement are discussed. The main concern is how can the industry's resources be used for the airworthiness authority to fully take authority's responsibilities during certification. The traditional way to use industry's resources is implementing delegation system. With delegation system, the authority can directly use industry's resources. Considering that the delegation system depends on the individual decision-making, different behaviors of individuals as a designee and in organization are studied from the viewpoint of the organizational behavior. Requiring design organization to implement the design assurance system (DAS) is selected as another option, and the idea of organization certification is presented. After carefully comparing the advantages and disadvantages between product certification and organization certification, and also between designee system and design organization respectively, the methodology of using designee system and requiring design organization to implement the design assurance system (DAS), as the way of transferring from the solely aviation product certification to the certification of product and organization, is proposed. And the core requirements of DAS are concluded. Following the vision, key elements, and clear development methodology of CAAC airworthiness certification system, detailed actions to achieve the final goal are presented as well. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd.