Trying to find information on Lot Traceability requirements that Ford may have.

I have looked in their Customer Requirement for PPAP, FMEA & TS and can not find anything that indicates they must have lot traceability back to a particular weld fixture, etc. Only that "Lot Traceability must be maintained".

Does anyone know of an actual specification or where I may be able to find information???

Here is what I found in 4.5.4 of the Ford Motor Company Customer-Specific Requirements of 2003 in conjunction with TS16949.

. Lot Traceability through shipping (lot Traceability shall include subcontracted components of an assembly/module that are associated with compliance to any FMVSS requirement)

Also see web page as shown:

requirements are available on the web page https://web.fsli.ford.com/mpl/index.html.

Hope this helps a bit.

Thanks Dave,

Could you review the web site addy you listed. I just tried to use and and I am getting an error "Not Found".

Sorry but mine didn't work also but the information was picked up in 2005 so, possibly, they changed their web address.

Sorry but mine didn't work also but the information was picked up in 2005 so, possibly, they changed their web address.

It's a restricted website anyway (https://web.fsli.ford.com/public/html/access.cgi).

The Supplier Learning Institute is intended for Supplier representatives who contribute to Ford Motor Company projects - from senior management to plant floor personnel. The Institute resides in a secure area of the Ford Supplier Portal (FSP). Users are required to provide a Covisint Member ID and password to gain access to the Supplier Learning Institute.

Trying to find information on Lot Traceability requirements that Ford may have.

I have looked in their Customer Requirement for PPAP, FMEA & TS and can not find anything that indicates they must have lot traceability back to a particular weld fixture, etc. Only that "Lot Traceability must be maintained".

Does anyone know of an actual specification or where I may be able to find information???

The Ford specific requirements can be found on the AIAG website http://www.iatfglobaloversight.org/content.aspx?page=FordMotorCompany

"lot traceability through shipping (lot traceability shall include subcontracted
components of an assembly/module that are associated with compliance to
any FMVSS requirement)"

You won't find anything as specific as traceability to individual weld fixtures, however, in the event of a weld related problem (Possibly leading to a recall), it is advisable to have as much traceability as possible to narrow down the quantity of parts which may be effected.

If you can limit the issue to a small quantity of parts and can then account for them through sorting activity, you can potentially save $ millions in avoiding a product recall.

If you are doing robotic welding, the answer may be as simple as having an additional spot or mig weld in a specific area of the part to distinguish between weld fixtures.

Thanks Prototyper,

I have been through those requirements found at the IAOB website.

I was hoping to find something more specific then what is in them.

I'm afraid you won't find anything more specific, but as I said, it is well worth doing it anyway.

I totally agree with you. However not everyone does, which is why I have been looking for something more specific to beef up my arguement.

I worked for a Tier 1 supplier of welded fabrications for 18 years. In that time I was asked to do the damage limitation for 4 potential recall situations and avoided all 4.

The most important factors are 1. how serious is the failure, 2. when would the failure be likely to occur, 3. what was the frequency of occurrence and 4. how many parts may be effected.

It was only by good root cause investigation and effective traceability that I could prove how many parts may have been effected and therefore limit the required sorting activity.

Traceability may be seen as a pain in the **** until you really need it, then it's worth it's weight in gold!

There added benefits to traceability if you have multiple fixtures, in terms of monitoring capability from each fixture, effective root cause analysis for problems, etc.