"Are obsolete and current PPAP retained for the life plus one year of the product?" What does this mean in layman's term?

You must keep the records of the PPAP for all the time the part is being supplied and then for another year.
This is my reading

I agree.

Dave

You must keep the records of the PPAP for all the time the part is being supplied and then for another year.
This is my reading

I recall when working with GM several years ago the requirement for record retention was life of the part plus one calendar year. "Life of the part" was interpreted as the extent of GM's production use, and "calendar" year meant the January-December period following the end of product life. In other words, if a part went out of production in June of '05, the records would have to be retained until the end of December '06.

I recall when working with GM several years ago the requirement for record retention was life of the part plus one calendar year. "Life of the part" was interpreted as the extent of GM's production use, and "calendar" year meant the January-December period following the end of product life. In other words, if a part went out of production in June of '05, the records would have to be retained until the end of December '06.

From the 3rd Edition PPAP manual, page 17:

Production part approval records...regardless of submission level, shall be maintained for the length of t ime that the part is active (See Glossary) plus one calendar year.

The glossary (page 87) defines "active part" as

...one currently being supplied to the customer for original equipment or service applications. The part remains active until tooling scrap authorization is given by the appropriate customer activity. For parts with no customer-owned tooling or situations where multiple parts are made from the same tool, written confirmation from the customer Purchasing activity is required to deactivate a part.