Approval For Standard OEM Parts - I am never quite sure how we should submit approval

[SMcD]

As a distributor to the automotive industry I am never quite sure how we should submit approval.

We will soon be distributing fasteners to a plant makeing a GM product. Most of the suppliers and parts we will be dealing with have already been approved by GM.

At this point my customer has not clearly defined (decided) what they will require for approval. I am hoping (with your help) to come up with something that makes sense.

Is there some offical way that I can show that the supplier has been approved by GM (I heard something about an authorization for warrant only).

Is there also a quick easy way to show that GM has approved the part (Sub. Status Report).

Since the customer has no say in changing the appoved part/process it seems a waist of time, resources and money to submit level 3 PPAP's for appoval.

If you are a company that ships direct to GM as well as Tier 1 you may be able to give me some examples of how your Tier 1 customers deal with part approval.

[Al Dyer]

Be wary of fasteners these days, there are new thread requirements and quite a few are safely items.

I don't want to comment on your next comments until you can reply with your companies exposure to Big 3 requirements.

Just as a note although, no matter what paperwork you supply with an APQP/PR/PPAP, there is still a need to perform the entire package and have it on hand if they ask for it.

Al...

[Randy Stewart]

My first question is What is the your customer required to submit to GM? Are they submitting a PPAP on the whole assembled product? If so they may need your PPAP in the package.
As for being a GM approved supplier, a couple comments.
First, it doesn't matter if you are "self certifying" under GM, if your immediate customer (tier 1) requests full PPAP documents then that is what will be your requirement (they may not be level 1 PPAP approved). Secondly, if you are a distributor does that mean that you do not manufacture the fasteners? If so then your supplier is the one to produce the required documentation to you.
I agree with Al, watch out for those fasteners!!!!

[SMcD]

In my effort to not run on and on I must have left out alot of info. Please understand @ this point I am just researching possibilities.

Our customer is /is not GM!!! It is a joint venture plant doing a new GM line. They are not QS (so far). That may explain why the requirements are yet to be determined and not written in stone.
As far as exposure, none. I am just starting to connect with our new suppliers and have had a few conversations in regard to how they had submitted approval to GM. (I have been working with QS for some time but have never worked with the Big 3 directly.)

I am only trying to avoid the cost of obtaining the documentation. APQP/PR/PPAP need to be done regardless. In fact if GM has already approved the part/process you can be sure it is done.

Yes we are a distributor. We have always in the past obtained, reviewed, approved submitted PPAPs from our suppliers whenever it was required by our customer. Please understand that so far this customer has not requested anything specific.

One mistake that I made in the past was submitting a PPAP (already appoved by the OEM) to a tier 1 customer. They had changes they wanted made. (one was to add a FMEA threshold but lets not go there). I had to find a very subtle way of explaining to them that this is a standard OEM part. It is shipped world wide to 100's of customers. It is not resonable to have the mfr. change the PPAP each time it is requested by a new customer. Hence my dilema. Why would you submit a Level 3 PPAP package that has already been approved by the top customer (OEM). It just seems a waist of time to me and most of all it makes no sense.

I was exploring the idea of sugesting to the customer that I provide a copy of the GM Submission Status Report as evidence of GM approval. Although it is less relevent I would also provide a copy of Authorization For Warrant ONly in the case where the Submission Status states Level 1 was submitted.

I know I can obtain and submit a level 3 for each and every part. This would be no problem although there will be costs involved. I just wanted to take a look at common sense. Maybe in the end that will have nothing to do with it at all.