We have a satellite site that wants to be ISO TS 16949 certified, however, the parent company is only certified to ISO 9001 only and provides many of the SOPs, MOPs and COPs. For example all purchasing, I.S. support and sales (to name a few processes barring design) is all done through the main - parent site. Our quality manager said he has discussed this with our registrar and they have determined we can get certified to the 16949 without the main sites supporting processes being audited.
However, a group of managers just went through ISO TS training and presented the same question to the instructor, an auditor who works for a different registrar with 30 yrs experience and the instructor said it was a no go, they are part of the satellite's quality system and must be audited and certified as well.

Who is right?

We have a satellite site that wants to be ISO TS 16949 certified, however, the parent company is only certified to ISO 9001 only and provides many of the SOPs, MOPs and COPs. For example all purchasing, I.S. support and sales (to name a few processes barring design) is all done through the main - parent site. Our quality manager said he has discussed this with our registrar and they have determined we can get certified to the 16949 without the main sites supporting processes being audited.
However, a group of managers just went through ISO TS training and presented the same question to the instructor, an auditor who works for a different registrar with 30 yrs experience and the instructor said it was a no go, they are part of the satellite's quality system and must be audited and certified as well.

Who is right?

The instructor is right, we have a similiar situation here. We are the "parent" company with a division that relies heavily on us for engineering, training and executive reviews. We are both TS16949 registered, however, their certificate states that it includes support locations, (which is us).

The registrar appears to be ignoring the TS scheme rules.

If the site is not self-sufficient for TS, rules 2.2 and 2.3 would mandate auditing of the supporting activities.