Confused about the TS 16949 Deadline - Presumably a Big 3 mandate?

[Sue]

Confused about the TS 16949 Deadline

Hi Everyone,

I've been lurking for a month now and have found all your contributions most helpful!

I was wondering if anyone else finds themselves in our situation.
We are a Tier 2 supplier (50 employees) and several of our customers are asking us to to registered by year's end (presumably a Big 3 mandate); however we find ourselves in somewhat of a bind.

We made application for ISO/TS 16949:2002 in April of 2002 with a major registrar and were assigned an auditor. We were told he was fully qualified only to be notified in July that no one is currently through the TS16949 training and will not be until mid to late September. Our auditor has also indicated that he will need to free up time in his schedule to attempt to audit us by year's end in the mandatory 90 day time frame from desk audit to final registratin audit.

Our dilemma is whether to go for a less than ideal audit and meet our customers' requirements or wait until the auditor is trained and can devote his full attention to the audit process.

Has there been any consideration to extending the deadline for registration to the ISO/TS 16949:2002 for those suppliers who have not been previously registered to any other standard such as QS9000.

Sue

 

[Roger Eastin]

The mandate is to be ISO9001:2000 registered. Are they asking you to be TS16949 registered?

 

[Sue]

I was hired less than 2 month ago to assist this company in obtaining registration. Before I came onboard, they had made the determination to go with the new standard. Since their customers asking for registratin are automotive suppliers, QS9000 would have been their alternate option - probably not a good one considering it will not be valid for long.

Sue

 

[Roger Eastin]

Sue - the Sanctioned Interpretation for QS-9000 and the new TS16949-2002 requirement is for Tier 2 suppliers to be third-party registered to ISO9001:2000. For QS, the deadline is the end of this year while for TS it is the end of 2003. However, it sounds like your customers are asking you to be TS-registered. There is no requirement for that given in either the QS or TS standard, so this must be a customer requirement. Oh, to your original question, I have heard nothing about dealines being extended. But who knows? Customer can change requirements whenever they want. You can choose not to have them as customers.

 

[Al Dyer]

Sue,

Tough place to be in, Have you went to:

www.aiag.org to get a list of approved registrars and auditors?

I would like to know who you choose as a registrar. If it is P.J., no need to respond, their check has not cleared the R.A.B. yet.