:confused: I am in a bit of a jam. My company is ISO/TS16949. Under this certification, our calibration suppliers must be 17025 certified. Not all of my suppliers are and now we absolutely MUST start re-sourcing them if we are to maintain our own certification. One of my suppliers is a scale calibrator for our scales we use to weigh count our product. We have been with them since the beginning and do not want to lose them. They are not certified but would like to be. THey have all of their documentation, they have done internal audits, etc. but are being told that the process for registration takes a minimum of five months. Is this normal for this standard???

I have also been told that one supplier got certified and was then told by their customer that the registrar was not acceptable or qualified. Is there a list of approved registrars?

In addition, I would like to be able to post information on our supplier web for these suppliers so that they can more quickly understand the standard and get their certification. I am new in this area, so any guidance is so appreciated.

16949 - 7.6.3.2 gives an option to accreditation to ISO/IEC 17025. You could provide evidence that the external lab (scale company) is acceptable to the customer.

Note 1 allows that such evidence may be demonstrated by customer assessment, for example, or by a customer-approved second-party assessment (2pCP) that the lab meets the intent of 17025 or national equivalent.

The 5 months quoted is probably because of backlog for the registrar in completing the audit. Once a lab is audited and recommended for certification, the actual process usually takes about 3-4 weeks. Availability of auditors is usually the big holdup.

I would suggest you contact the AIAG for a list of approved AIAG/PRI 2nd Party (2pCP) auditors and see if your suppliers can go that route. It was set up by the Big 3 as a reasonably low-cost approval program to allow smaller labs to meet Note 1.

The following link is still active although it specifically states "QS-9000". I am making an assumption that it is either still active or a similar one must be available for 16949. The page lists the "customer approved" second parties to meet the alternative "approval". It also lists the "approved" certification bodies for 17025.

I hope this helps a bit.

Dave

Thank you for your reply.

I missed the link somehow. Will ALL customers accept a letter of compliance from one of the second party approved?

In addition, we are using the scales for weigh counting end product and they do not really impact the quality of the product we are producing. Could we exempt them from the requirement for 17025 if they have all the traceability, etc on the certs that they provide to us?

The 2pCP program is an AIAG program specifically to address the alternative approval by the customer. All of the Big 3 have stated it is acceptable (I have no documentation of that - maybe try AIAG).

I would have thought the quantity of the product would have a direct impact on the packaging requirements of the customer which would impact quality. That is, of course, just my opinion. The standard states that you must determine the measuring devices needed to provide evidence of conformity to requirements. If there is no requirement to how many parts you package then you may not need to identify scales as such a device. If it isn't important though, why do you care about the count now?

One solution could be to have the scale company provide you with a set of calibrated transfer standards and you could then do your own "verification". The scale company would still do whatever they do under your maintenance agreement. If one of the scales was found to be beyond a given tolerance, it could then be taken by the scale company and replaced, fixed, or whatever. You, technically, wouldn't care if the scale itself was calibrated because you are using the transfer standard weights to verify the scale is suitable for your use. A similarity would be if you needed a certain amount of light, you could use any light bulb. The light meter (transfer standard) is what would need to be calibrated.

The point being made here is that if you do your own verification using transfer weights that are traceable to a national standard (copy given to you of the certificate provided to the scale company from the state or where ever they have their weights checked), there would be no requirement for the scale (Maintenance) company to be certified to 17025. You would be responsible for the "calibration/verification" and would have to conform to the requirements of 7.6.3.1 (internal labs). If the scale company does the calibration, they must be accredited.

Dave

You didn't miss the link - I forgot to post it. Sorry.

http://www.aiag.org/forms/gm_recognition_letter.pdf

Dave

:confused: I am in a bit of a jam. My company is ISO/TS16949. Under this certification, our calibration suppliers must be 17025 certified. Not all of my suppliers are and now we absolutely MUST start re-sourcing them if we are to maintain our own certification. One of my suppliers is a scale calibrator for our scales we use to weigh count our product. We have been with them since the beginning and do not want to lose them. They are not certified but would like to be. THey have all of their documentation, they have done internal audits, etc. but are being told that the process for registration takes a minimum of five months. Is this normal for this standard???

I have also been told that one supplier got certified and was then told by their customer that the registrar was not acceptable or qualified. Is there a list of approved registrars?

In addition, I would like to be able to post information on our supplier web for these suppliers so that they can more quickly understand the standard and get their certification. I am new in this area, so any guidance is so appreciated.


Yes, there is a list.....

http://www.ilac.org

http://www.aplac.org

http://www.nacla.net

To boil down the list somewhat, there are currently five internationally recognized bodies that do or can operate in the U.S.: IAS, A2LA, NVLAP, L-A-B, and SCC/CLAS. Any of these bodies should be accepted.

One other potential is one I call "creative financing" that being a - collaboration - of the lab and the customer who needs/wants their services.....

Hershal