Our Company is a manufacture of CMM Holding Fixtures, Attribute Fixtures etc.for the automotive suppliers. We are currently certified to QS9000TE. Since that will no longer be available we would like to Certify our Quality Lab to ISO17025 and leave the Manufacturing and Design processes with no certification to ISO9001. Only a internal (Non-Auditable) Quality Manual for those process. Any input if this is acceptable?

Thanks, GregC

Hi Greg - congratulations on your first post. I work for a tier 2 bulk material supplier who chose to beome registered to ISO/TS 16949. One of the requirements we see in TS, which your customers probably are, is supplier development with a goal of having our suppliers compliant with the requirements of ISO/TS 16949. The first step identified by the standard is getting them registered to ISO 9001:2000.

So, if you were our supplier, we'd be encouraging you to become registered to ISO 9001:2000. We have sent letters to our non-registered suppliers, enquiring about their plans to become registered to ISO 9001:2000, and urging them to do so.

My WAG, is that registering just the lab portion of your company to ISO Guide 17025 will probably not meet the desires of your automotive customers and they will push for ISO 9001:2000 registration at a minimum.

The short answer is that the "uncovered" parts of your QMS may still need registration.

For the parts that can become accredited to ISO/IEC 17025, yes the plan is good.....providing the customers understand that the accreditation means you meet or exceed the applicable requirements of ISO 9001.

You should understand that the accreditation would apply only to your internal laboratory (be it testing or calibration), although the accrediting body will expect the documented QMS to cover anything that it touches, and if any measurements are performed in the design or manufacturing areas, the records for those measurements are also subject to audit.

That may seem new to most, but an AB tends to take the position that the documented QMS applies to the ENTIRE organization, not just to the lab.

Hope this helps.

Hershal