According to TS16949 7.4.1.2, "Unless otherwise specified by the customer, suppliers to the organization shall be third party registered to ISO 9001:2000 by an accredited third-party certification body."

To which suppliers does this requirement apply? Obviously suppliers of direct material that would go into your saleable product would be required to be registered, but what about suppliers of indirect material such as tooling & equipment, coolants, or anything else that could affect product quality? What about prototype suppliers? Suppliers of services such as design/CAD work?

If, as Note 1 of 7.4.1 states, purchased products include all products and services that affect customer requirements...then one could make a case that all of the suppliers listed above would be required to be registered.

Anyone have any clarification on this requirement for me?

Sounds like you have figured it out for yourself Kerry.

Why do I always feel like I should be lying on a psychiatrist's couch when I ask questions in these forums? ....well Kerry, how do you feel about the supplier development requirement???

I apologize for the sarcasm, but I'm sure most of you can relate. In my position I like to think I understand the intent of the Standards and how they apply to my company. My biggest problem is convincing the non-quality folk in the organization that I'm not just making this stuff up as I go along - trying to find bigger and better ways to screw up their days. The question I am most frequently asked is "where is it written?" If I don't see where "it" is written, I ask my fellow quality folk and hope that someone out there can tell me. In this instance I'm really not trying to figure "it" out for myself, I'm trying to find some sort of sanctioned interpretation, if you will, to show the non-believers that I am not leading them astray.

Is there anything in writing on this issue, or am I pretty much on my own on this one?:bonk:

Kerry,There are no sanctioned interpretations on this para yet.
This question was asked of the panel at he ISO/TS rollout meeting I attended. The panel response was " if you have any questions/concerns relating to supplier development, contact your customer. Waivers must be in writing."

According to the standards that are usually applied then all suppliers that have a bearing on the part should be included.
Normally things like toilet paper etc are excluded but as we discussed before the need for motivation maybe the standard of the toilet paper has a direct effect on motivation and thus needs to be a recognised supplier with incoming inspection.:biglaugh:

IMNSHO I think that the body of 7.4.1.2 and the note are talking about two separate things!

The body refers to all suppliers, saying that all suppliers need to comply. The note just states what the priority of supplier development. A critical supplier needs to be developed (comply with the body) before a lesser supplier.

The problem I have is based on ISO 9000:2000 a supplier is an organization that provides a product, which in turn is defined as a result of a process, which in turn is defined as activities that turn inputs into outputs. Given those definitions (excluding notes) ALL suppliers fit under this requirments.

Taking into account the notes, one could argue that only "value added" processes need to be included. This would eliminate many lesser suppliers, but still include tooling and coolant.

I'm sorry - I may have confused things by referring back to a note from 7.4.1 after discussing 7.4.1.2. Anyway, I find the whole thing rather conflicting.

I just returned from a meeting with my supplier quality and purchasing organizations. Again, the need for clarification reared its ugly head. I work with a bunch of people who want to see in writing something like "this requirement applies to supplier type A in this situation, but not in this situation, supplier type B in this situation..." and so on. I know I'm not going to find that anywhere, but still they want it.

My bottom line that I'm telling everyone is that all suppliers of material that could affect customer requirements or satisfaction must be registered to ISO9001:2000 by 12/31/2003 unless waived by the customer. This includes suppliers of direct material (material that goes into the final saleable product), tooling, equipment, gages, spare parts, coolants and other processing materials, outside processing services (i.e., painting, machining, sorting, sequencing, calibration, etc.), and prototypes.

If anyone out there disagrees with me, please let me know why. For those in agreement, do any of you know how various Tier 1's are handling this?

The following link applies to QS-9000, but I suspect that the same rationale would apply for TS-16929:2002. I believe that the document addresses most of your questions.

http://www.aiag.org/forms/QS-9000Info-07-01-02Final.pdf

Just be aware that you might have more questions after you read this. Just don't shoot the messenger, please.

Kerry - I think you are handling the requirement ok by saying who this applies to in your organization. We are a tier 2, but our tier 1 has a waiver (read, an approval for 2nd party audits). We are audited by our tier 1. I found this quote in the Quality System Update from April 2002:
"Section 7.4.1.2 Supplier Quality Management System Development of ISO/TS 16949:2002 requires that the direct product manufacturing suppliers to the organization have their quality system in step with the organization seeking compliance to the technical specification.
This essentially means the organization’s direct product manufacturing suppliers need to have in place a robust development program aimed at achieving conformity with ISO/TS 16949. There are a number of steps to be considered including conformity to ISO 9001:2000 as the first followed by registration to ISO 9001:2000, unless otherwise waived by the customer. Although there is no specific date for achievement, audit findings will likely be based on a defined plan and its effective implementation.
“What we require number one is a plan,” said Gryn. “And number two it should be something that’s reasonable.”
Bransky noted that even fourth- or fifth-tier suppliers may be candidates for ISO/TS 16949 certification in some cases, depending on the wishes of their customer. “If the tier above you requires it for sourcing … then you would be required to get ISO/TS 16949:2002 certification if you wanted to do business with that customer,” he said."

Sometimes, I think that the spokespeople for the Big 3 know what they want to say, but they struggle with how to say it. In some ways, this quote above invites more questions, whatever the intent of the speaker. It was also interesting to note from this Update how much "tougher" it will be to qualify as an auditor for TS16949 -2002. The Big 3 (et al.) want auditors to ask more customer-oriented questions than just questions about compliance with the standard. It looks like the 3rd party auditors are becoming more 3rd party auditor/SQA rep.

Roger stated:
Although there is no specific date for achievement

"Unless otherwise specified by the customker, suppliers to the organization shall be third party registered to ISO 9001:2000 by an accredited third-party certification body."

I'm sure I'm splitting hairs here, but this sentence indicates (to me anyway) that supplier registration must be accomplished PRIOR to an organization's registration to TS.

In my earlier post I indicated I think that 'under the letter of the law' ALL suppliers need to be registered, not just those of importance! This is, in my opinion, a major flaw in TS and needs to be addressed.

On a different note: I've heard that registrars are being told to watch for checklists based on the standard. If organizations are auditing to the standard, not the process they should fail the audit! :eek:

I just met with my registrar who assured me that these requirements only apply to direct material suppliers, prototype suppliers, and those suppliers of processing such as mentioned in Note 1, including suppliers of calibration services.

They were of the opinion that the requirements did not apply to suppliers of tooling, equipment, spare equipment parts, and other suppliers stuff we would use in our manufacturing process (i.e., lapping compound, coolants, etc.).

Anyone else with feedback from your registrar?

The issue of suppliers have not been a real issue here. The incoming raw material is to international standards and the suppliers have a ISO/BSI accrediation (like a lot of British companies). This applies also to inspection equipment and some tooling. Where the supplier is not accredited we use either a questionaire which provides proof that their systems will provide details of there management systems and/or we carry out a third party audit. The assessor has been happy with this under QS and does not see a problem as far as 16949 goes. Subject to sanctioned interpretations we'll keep going down this road. I hope this helps and good luck with it all...