Customer request VDA 6.3 as well as TS 16949

[Helmut Jilling]

To be clear

VDA 6.3 is not a certifiable standard

It is a process audit as required by TS in 8.2.2.2 Manufacturing process audit , which is defined in a better way than the TS standard.

Just as the US companies have mandated LPAs, German companies are mandating VDA 6.3

The next stage will be mandating VDA 6.5 for TS 8.2.2.3 Product audit as this is also not clear from the standard.

That is what I am finding. But they did not give my client any direction on this. They just came in and performed a customer VDA audit without any prior direction to determine that these additional requirements were implemented. The client was given months to implement TS, and they did a good job at that. But there was no window on VDA. It is wrong to ambush their suppliers without some advance planning.

The ultimate was the comment that a "lot of our supplier are angry about this..." Really? Ya think?

 

[Howard Atkins]

That is what I am finding. But they did not give my client any direction on this. They just came in and performed a customer VDA audit without any prior direction to determine that these additional requirements were implemented. The client was given months to implement TS, and they did a good job at that. But there was no window on VDA. It is wrong to ambush their suppliers without some advance planning.

The ultimate was the comment that a "lot of our supplier are angry about this..." Really? Ya think?

What additional requirements that are not in TS?

The client was given months to implement TS, and they did a good job at that.

By whom?
Was there no reference in any of the quotation documents or CSRs about this?
Was it really a surprise or just ignored?

 

[Helmut Jilling]

What additional requirements that are not in TS?

The client was given months to implement TS, and they did a good job at that.

By whom?
Was there no reference in any of the quotation documents or CSRs about this?
Was it really a surprise or just ignored?

As far as I know it was a surprise. The customer gave my client 9 months to implement their TS system, and it was successful. Obviously, TS does not express any requirements for VDA 6.3.

There have been many customer visits, with no mention of doing a VDA audit. This seems to be a relatively new initiative from their customer. But, my complaint is this is a big expectation, and the customer should have given some months notice they were taking it up a notch.

Not how customer - supplier relationships should be done...

 

[maggylu168]

The same problem happened in Asia. A good VDA 6.3 evaluation is not only expertise on the requirements but also professional on the processes to be audited. Most cases are the auditors has trouble converting the thinking based on the assembly line of car plant to apply to different industries. Less respect from single perspective viewpoint without listening bothers suppliers much.

 

[michajel86]

Maggylu and others, this is exactly what happens if you ignore CSR or you are blind during new business feasibility study just due to vision of new bussiness .
Typicaly in companies that have no respect to carefully read the special customer requirements as quality manuals, agreements .Just for your information , each company that is producing parts for VW - for final customer (doesnt matter if tier 1 ,2,3 ,x = whole supply chain)have to follow formelQ requiremets where you can find process auditing as well .In case that there is no agreement (Quality manual/ agreement) , no CSR , you do not have to accept auditor request for auditing ,but this is usually not happening .

 

[maggylu168]

Hi Michajel86,
It seems you have an assumption that suppliers don't read CSR or any agreements before being audited. The truth is electronics are quite new to OEMs. Some auditors just insist following some rules without thinking the reasons or purpose behind the words. I take the following examples.

Example 1: Lock the incoming quarantined products with keys.
For electronics industry, the incoming products are managed in a controlled room. We marked 5 square meters with red line for deviation. The reasons we don't need another space with doors and locks are:
a. The entrance to the room has authorization limit.
b. All products are monitoring and gating with IT system.
c. Electronics products are quite small and don't need to have another space for failures.
By this way, we think it's enough for preventing people from wrongly used.
However, it is not accepted by the auditors.

Example 2: Box cutters are totally forbidden in the production line.
The auditor is quite mad when seeing operators use box cutter to open the boxes. He said the cutters have risk damaging products inside boxes and operators could hurt themselves as well. The thing is we have cushion on top of the products for protection and operators are not kids and well-trained already.

So may I have your comments for the above requirements during VDA 6.3 audit?

 

[michajel86]

Hi Maggylu ,
thank you for examples.
To be honest there is not enough information to clarify the findings.
But VDA 6.3 clause 5.6 clearly says that suspected incomming products must be protected against access .To be honest it is about preventing the risk . Ask yourself "is there a possibility to mix suspected part with OK parts ? In case that you answer yes ,even if you estimate risk to 0,01% (100 ppm =100 potential car failures) , you have to improve your process to get 0 - ZERO DEFECT POLICY . I dont know if there were some complaints from your customer due to defects on your assemblies caused by faulty material from your supplier. .. Second one P6.1.3 - safe handling . Have you ever bought something from supermarket and the package of your favorite biscuits has been cutted ? I am sure that answer is yes . this sometimes happens .even if the workers are properly trained . there is a lot of products in the market that could perfectly fits for usage in your production -Safety box cutters . You wrote "The auditor is quite mad when seeing operators use box cutter to open the boxes" .I dont know what exactly he saw , but if he went mad ,probably he saw really dangerous manipulation by some of your operators. It is all about failure avoiding .. I saw what could happend when OEM will stop the lines due to faulty components in the past and I do know what does mean car "recall" from field .. hope you dont . (ps :english level sufficient ? )

 

[maggylu168]

Hi Michajel86,
Agree to lack of enough background information for you to properly clarify the findings. The safety box cutter is the issue that happened when the auditor picked up a box with finished goods inside and asked our operator to open it immediately. I have to say your mentioned cuttered biscuits or dangerous manipulation rarely happen in Japan, especially in a Japanese plant. The point is we think IT system control is better than human control for faulty material. Let the computer do the gating is more closer to ZERO DEFECT POLICY than human with keys. The same concept applies for FIFO as well. (another case: the auditor requires paper with serial numbers for visibility while we use ERP with barcode system to control.) I doubt maybe this is not only a culture difference but also a generation difference.
BTW, the plant is a tier-2 electronic components supplier and the audit language is German. What do you mean for "english level sufficient?" another preconception?

 

[Carol F.]

We use the VDA 6.3 checklist in all of our internal audits due to a missed opportunity of taking exception to this requirement during our CSR process. We added a column for TS on the Requirements page of the checklist so that us auditors could reference where the TS requirements align with what the VDA was looking at. It is also helpful if you can get your hands on the VDA 6.3 manual. That has even more information on each section. Hope this helps someone out there.

 

[maggylu168]

Although the comparison is between old VDA 6.3 and old TS16949, it helps a little. However, there are some wrongly or missing mapping from VDA 6.3 in the table from P4.4 to P4.9. If anyone can share the similar mapping for VDA 6.3 3rd revision and TS16949 4th revision. That would be a great big help~