As metengr noted, the associated specifications used for qualifying a laser welding procedure can vary between industries and applications. AWS D17.1 is a general specification for fusion welding in aerospace applications, AWS C7.2 is recommended practices for laser beam welding, and AWS C7.4 is process specification and operator qualification for laser beam welding. Your internal process control document and qualification procedure would likely refer to all three of these AWS specs as well as dozens of additional specs from ASTM, AMS, etc. that the AWS specs cross reference.
You can also base your process control document and qualification procedure on ISO specs/standards. Here is a handy chart that lists most of the ISO specs related to various types of fusion welding.
All three AWS specs are relevant to developing/qualifying your laser weld process. For an aerospace fusion weld AWS D17.1 is the most comprehensive document, while AWS C7.2 and C7.4 are specific to laser welding. I have not read thru AWS C7.4, but I would guess that it provides a guideline for the steps involved in qualifying a laser weld process for an aerospace application. For most aerospace applications, you will be qualifying a weld process that is specific to your particular component and end item/model configuration. And any changes to the component design or weld procedure will likely require you to re-qualify the process. The qualified laser weld process will be controlled by your own internal documentation and CM procedures.
A couple years ago, I went thru this exercise to qualify a friction weld process on a flight critical aircraft drivetrain component. We worked closely with our friction welding source to develop the documentation and qualify the process. We used an ISO specification as a guideline since our welding vendor was already familiar with it. The qualification effort involved writing a detailed manufacturing procedure, producing several representative weld samples based on the written procedure, and then performing metallurgical and mechanical testing on the weld samples to validate the process.
