My two cents for what it's worth
We are a very small company, I could only wish for eight people. It’s just the owner and me, so I can sympathize with your position Mark. Our company was just recommended for TS certification last Thursday.
Our auditor confirmed Mark’s statement, “If your customer requires certification to TS you must comply.” Ours did and we are now “recommended” for certification.
I look at TS as ISO on steroids. If ISO is a burden, TS is only a slightly larger burden. In my book it would be worth taking on the additional burden to present your company as a TS certified company. If you are in the automotive market this breaks down some of the barriers to becoming a supplier to larger entities.
Regarding the discussion concerning your suppliers be ISO certified, quote from Dirk,
“"Unless otherwise specified by they customer [your customer], suppliers [you] to the organization shall be third party registered to ISO 9001:2000 by an accredited third-party certification body."
Luckily our auditor did not linger on this subject… Our suppliers had no rejected materials or corrective actions, so I think this was a plus. Had he lingered I would have presented the question, “Since we are achieving the goal of TS wouldn’t we be the customer that could specify a supplier (to us) not be registered to ISO 9001:2000?”
An example given to the auditor would be: If I have a supplier that has met all of my requirements, had no incidents of non conforming material, premium freight, etc. etc. Is that supplier not meeting my guidelines for an approved supplier? I understand he/she needs to conform to ISO, and achieving ISO 9001/2000 is the goal, but should he/she be disqualified as a supplier because that goal has not been met? To my recollection the standard would like a timeframe, but no limitations are required of the timeframe. Is ten, twenty years acceptable??
Look forward to the valuable insight people more qualified than I will add to this opinion.