J
jmp4429
I can’t figure out what the heck is going on here. Maybe someone can help me out.
We are a T1 supplier to the automotive industry. The confusing bit is that we don’t sell directly to our automotive customer. We have what I would call a sister company that handles sales. We ship the product directly to the auto company, but the auto company sends payment to the sister company, who then pays us. Technically, once a product comes off the end of the line and into finished goods, it belongs to the sister company (from an accounting standpoint only - everything else is handled directly with the auto manufacturer).
Many people here are quick to call this sister company our “parent company.” I have been told several times now that we have to be careful to refer to them as our “sales representative,” because they are not TS certified and it would cause us to lose our certification. I want to make a note here that according to my coworkers, what we do is eligible for certification, it's just that we have to be careful about what we say we do to avoid a big mess trying to explain this.
Is this true? As far as I can tell from reading the certification scheme, a site can become independently certified to the standard without the parent company requiring certification. However, if we say that they are our sales function; wouldn’t their sales department require an audit as an off-site support function?
Without trying to sound like an idiot, this information is something that has been passed through the company, and the people who initially made this determination don’t work here anymore. Basically, there’s nobody here anymore who can explain to me “this is why we decided it has to be this way.”
Edited: Just had what may have been an “aha” moment. Could it be that if we say they are our parent company, and we sell our product to them to resell to the auto manufacturer, that we appear to be 2nd Tier to a non-certified company and therefore not eligible for certification at all?
We are a T1 supplier to the automotive industry. The confusing bit is that we don’t sell directly to our automotive customer. We have what I would call a sister company that handles sales. We ship the product directly to the auto company, but the auto company sends payment to the sister company, who then pays us. Technically, once a product comes off the end of the line and into finished goods, it belongs to the sister company (from an accounting standpoint only - everything else is handled directly with the auto manufacturer).
Many people here are quick to call this sister company our “parent company.” I have been told several times now that we have to be careful to refer to them as our “sales representative,” because they are not TS certified and it would cause us to lose our certification. I want to make a note here that according to my coworkers, what we do is eligible for certification, it's just that we have to be careful about what we say we do to avoid a big mess trying to explain this.
Is this true? As far as I can tell from reading the certification scheme, a site can become independently certified to the standard without the parent company requiring certification. However, if we say that they are our sales function; wouldn’t their sales department require an audit as an off-site support function?
Without trying to sound like an idiot, this information is something that has been passed through the company, and the people who initially made this determination don’t work here anymore. Basically, there’s nobody here anymore who can explain to me “this is why we decided it has to be this way.”
Edited: Just had what may have been an “aha” moment. Could it be that if we say they are our parent company, and we sell our product to them to resell to the auto manufacturer, that we appear to be 2nd Tier to a non-certified company and therefore not eligible for certification at all?
