Bernhard Bals — Consultant for Space Companies

Across multiple engagements, the same pattern emerged: internal process audits against ISO 9001 or EN 9100, alongside supplier audits in aerospace and space projects.

The challenge rarely lies in the audit methodology itself. The real challenge is producing findings that responsible stakeholders can act upon — and establishing corrective actions that will withstand the next certification or customer audit.

At the end of each audits I handed over findings written in a form that enables action, and a reporting structure that supports effective action planning and prepares the organisation for future certification and customer audits.

Across many space companies, the same pattern appears repeatedly: a bid is being prepared or a new project is about to start, and the Product Assurance Plan must withstand scrutiny from ESA, a prime contractor or an end customer — within a very limited timeframe.

Generic templates rarely survive detailed review. Full ECSS implementation is often disproportionate at this stage. What is needed is a tailored Product Assurance Plan with genuine tailoring depth — delivered within weeks, not months.

The engagement concluded with a structured hand-over, enabling the customer’s team to take ownership of the plan from day one rather than depending on the consultant who created it.

A manufacturer of cabin-pressure management systems for commercial aircraft wanted to introduce MBSE into a development organisation built around traditional document-driven systems engineering.

The structural risk was clear: a methodological change that appears to be an engineering decision, but ultimately succeeds or fails at the interface between the new MBSE world and the existing process landscape.

The result was not MBSE according to a textbook standard, but an MBSE approach tailored to the organisation’s specific context.

A New Space engineering team was developing an infrared payload for a satellite mission dedicated to wildfire detection, with the Canadian Space Agency as the end customer.

The challenge was to establish a Product Assurance Plan aligned with ECSS-Q-ST-10C, but tailored to the pace and realities of a New Space programme — robust enough to support both SRR and PDR without slowing down engineering progress.

The resulting structure successfully supported both the SRR and the preparation for the payload’s PDR.

My customer was developing the deployable antenna system (LDRS) for ESA’s CIMR mission.

To support the Preliminary Design Review, the project needed timely and solid evidence for Safety Analysis, Cleanliness and Contamination Control, Fracture Control and Critical Items Control — all in parallel and aligned with the project schedule.

The result was a Product Assurance package that enabled the customer to enter the PDR with confidence.

My customer redeveloped the cabin pressure control system for the commercial aircraft B737 MAX.

My task was to clarify the scope of verification in order to bring the system to certification safely and effectively within a tight schedule. In just a few months, I reviewed more than 2,500 requirements and assessed the validity of existing verification evidence from previous B737 versions for the B737 MAX.

The result was a clear and defensible verification scope that distinguished, requirement by requirement, between evidence that remained valid and evidence that had to be recreated.

A space company in the Munich area had won the contract for the deployable reflector assembly (DRA) of ESA’s CIMR mission.

The project carried full ECSS Product Assurance obligations, but no Product Assurance organisation, no tailored PA Plan and no supporting evidence structure were yet in place. All three had to be established before the next review cycle began.

Together, we created the three foundations the project required: a Product Assurance Plan tailored against ECSS-Q-ST-10C and defensible in discussions with ESA; an evidence and tooling structure capable of surviving future personnel changes; a Product Assurance team able to operate the system independently, including the interfaces to Engineering, Project Management and the prime contractor.

My customer was developing a cabin-pressure control system for the MA-700 commercial aircraft.

I developed the required technical specifications in accordance with ARP4754A, designed the system architecture and functional behaviour, planned the verification activities and resolved the engineering issues that emerged throughout development.

The customer entered verification testing with a validated system design and an in-house Systems Engineer ready to continue the project independently.

A Kazakh space company was establishing the SBIK satellite integration and test centre in Astana. Service providers from Europe and the United States were responsible for installing, commissioning and verifying the test facilities.

The main project risk was not technical capability, but the interfaces between the parties: different languages, contractual frameworks and engineering cultures had to be aligned before implementation could begin.

At the end of our collaboration, my customer had a structured and validated test and installation concept that was coordinated with the service providers. This enabled them to commission the service providers with the assurance that the risk of delays due to misunderstandings and ambiguities was minimized.