TS 16949 Transition - Easy? Changed Auditor Requirements?

[Howard Atkins]

Please see this info

Dead link removed March 2004.

[Roger Eastin]

Thanks, Howard, for the link. It was an interesting article. Although there was nothing in the article that seemed new, it was interesting to see the auditor qualifications again. He also mentioned that companies should find ISO/TS16949 more challenging to implement than the other standards. I'm not sure what he meant by that. It seems that a company that has implemented QS, for instance, should find relatively little difference if they convert to TS16949.

[Dawn]

Surveillance audit today for QS9000: XXXX announced to us QS is obsolete at the end of the year. We have 3 years to comply with TS16949. 16949 will be revised at the end of the year to add the ISO2000 revisions. Never a dull moment......

We were also informed AIAG will oversee all registrars and the Registrars ALLOWED to audit to the TS standard will go from 2000 who can audit to QS to 30. This is due to alot of suppliers having containment issues and never being wrote up during audits for any major or minor noncompliances.

[This message has been edited by Marc Smith (edited 04 March 2000).]

[Laura M]

Originally posted by Dawn:
Surveillance audit today for QS9000: XXXX announced to us QS is obsolete at the end of the year. We have 3 years to comply with TS16949. 16949 will be revised at the end of the year to add the ISO2000 revisions. Never a dull moment.......

I guess none of us would be surprised in the obsolensence of QS...certainly has been rumored anyway...but for a registrar to announce it? Anyone else heard the same? How 'bout other registrars out there?

NOTE: Registrar name removed by request.

[This message has been edited by Marc Smith (edited 04 March 2000).]

[Roger Eastin]

Yeah, that just doesn't seem right for a registrar to "announce" that to a client, does it? Especially, when we've been reading that the B3 say that QS will NOT become obsolete (even though a lot of us think this only temporary)! I would definitely raise this issue with someone in the B3. Sounds like this registrar is overstepping its bounds...

[Marc]

Let's see. 1994 to present = 6 years. QS9000 has lasted 6 years. And how many dollars have businesses spent? I wonder...

Originally posted by Dawn:

...Registrars ALLOWED to audit to the TS standard will go from 2000 who can audit to QS to 30.

This I just gotta see... I think the last debacle was the lack of 'qualified' calibration resources. And wow... What a business boost to those 30 companies. I bet there are about 85 'upset' registrars... Do you think this was/is a sweet heart deal?

The numbers Dawn's registrar cited are suspect - specifically the 2000 number ascribed to the number of registrars. According to the Quality Online article there are 13,128 QS9000 registered companies, 115 registrars and 3200 'certified' auditors. If they limit registration to 30 registrars that gives each registrar about 437 companies and 320 auditors. So - each company will very nearly 'own' an auditor. Yes - there will be close to 1 auditor for every company. If the registrar charges US$1200 per manday for an auditor and the auditor gets about US$500, that leaves US$700 for overhead and profit per manday. It would really be interesting to know how many mandays total that all auditors claim in a year so we could know the size of this. You know, if there are 320 auditors and they each (averaged out) work 200 days a year (40 five day weeks leaving 15 weeks for travel and vacation / holiday) - Well - That's 64,000 mandays. That's US$32,000,000 for the auditors to split (US$100,000 per auditor) and US$44,800,000 for the registrars. This is obviously a sizeable business. It might better serve to just station/assign one auditor at/for each company and eliminate the registrars. Like the DoD does with DCAS. Approaches a compliance police force.

Ah.... More fun to come, folks!

You know, with all the tests and courses the auditors have to go through, I hope they're going to make more than the current rate. With only 3200 'certified' auditors in the world, they could 'strike' for higher pay. Geezzz... I dunno.... If they're already making US$100K a year..... But then again, all that travel...

In addition, I just got this off the news server:

---------- snippo ----------

Newsgroups: misc.industry.quality
Date: 02 Mar 2000 21:24:20 GMT
Subject: General Motors
Organization: AOL

A couple of companies that I am associated with just received notification from General Motors that they will now have to comply with ISO TS 16949 instead of QS 9000.

I know that TS 16949 is the replacement for a number of automotive standards, but it was the stance that those manufacturers in the United States who supplied "the big three" were not going to have to comply. I received this information from a number of sources and they agreed with each other (including AIAG, and a couple of registrars).

Does anyone why GM is implementing this requirement?

--------- snippo ----------

Comments, folks?

[Roger Eastin]

Boy, if GM did write that to some suppliers, that sure clouds the picture!! I thought they just said that they weren't going to require suppliers to switch from QS to TS!! Another example of "ya can't know the player without a program..."!

Since there is no accreditation scheme (and even if there was) a registrar can "force" its customer's to adopt ISO/TS-16949. The registrar does not have the right to say that QS-9000 is obsolete at the end of the year. Even if the writing is on the wall, only the B3 has the right to announce the death of QS-9000. I suspect that by "forcing" the company to adopt TS, it is the registrars way of "encouraging" the transition.

In a very recent meeting with high ranking GM representatives, they were very clear in announcing that ISO/TS is not a requirement. They also reiterated that the ISo/TS standard was still a pilot program and 30 registrars should not be using their pilot program status to gain market share or steal other registrars business. All such incidences should be reported to GM. I have been gathering a file, because I have seen registrars take advantage of their pilot program status as well. I suspect some rouge GM SQA/E are at work in the situation Mark has mentioned. I would be happy to bring any documented instances of "forced" TS compliance to the attention of the B3.

2 years ago the B3 announced that all QS-9000 auditors needed to be recertified. their objective was to "weed out" bad auditors. Unfortunatly I think this has back-fired (for many reasons too numerous to list here) and "the system" has weeded out some of the very best auditors. Now auditors have to take another expensive training course to be qualified to audit TS. I wonder how many more good auditors will be weeded out?

I think that once this "pilot program" mess is finalized, other registrars will be allowed to join the party. In 1994 only 5 registrars were chosed to issue QS certificates, we all know how that turned out.