The AS5553 was developed by a committee of government and industry quality experts under the guidance of SAE International. Its full title is AS5553 Counterfeit Electronic Parts; Avoidance, Detection, Mitigation, and Disposition. The standard was created to help electronic equipment manufacturers (OEM’s) create procedures to avoid counterfeits being installed in their products. The Department of Defense adopted it soon after its initial release in 2009. Subsequently, its language and flow downs began to appear on government contracts. This effect soon led to the need for independent distributors to be on the same page as OEM’s. In order to help that effort, the same working group, SAE G19, began creating the AS6081, specifically designed for independent distributors.
The AS5553 is currently undergoing changes to its second revision, AS5553b. One significant and contentious modification, that appears to be staying, is the removal of the appendices, which were original designed for guidance. The information in the current appendices is planned to be provided in a secondary document in order to make it clear that the guidance information is not to be treated as mandatory by auditors.
The AS5553 is a great document for your organization if you are a manufacturer of equipment and you need guidance on how to avoid counterfeit electronic components from inclusion in your products. Once adopting it within your quality standard, one of the steps that would help a company to comply would be to utilize an AS6081 distributor for all of their purchases of obsolete or hard-to-find electronic components.
For detailed information on how the AS5553 fits in among all of the other SAE G19 standards (AS6171, AS6081, etc.) on counterfeit electronic components, please see this diagram standards gap analysis. To buy a copy of the AS5553, please click buy AS5553.
Robb Hammond, founder and president of AERI (American Electronic Resource, Inc.). Founding member and former committee chair of the SAE AS6081 Standard created for the avoidance of counterfeit electronic components. Robb founded AERI in Costa Mesa, California, in 1994 as an independent distributor of hard-to-find, obsolete and allocated electronic components. AERI is AS9120B, ISO 9001:2015 and AS6081 certified, tests to AS6171 standards, and inspects every part in its in-house QC lab before it ships. Robb writes about electronic component shortages, sourcing strategy and counterfeit avoidance.
